Blood in the Ink in the Headlines
by Rat-chan
Summary: Perry gets a disturbing call about Harry -- from the LA County Morgue. It has all got to be a mistake, hasn't it? The rating is for language, violence, and slash content - Perry/Harry. *Complete* reviews contain spoilers
1. Chapter 1

******Disclaimer**: Perry Van Shrike, Harry Lockhart, and Harmony Faith Lane belong to people who make more money in a year than I'm likely to make in my life.  
**Warnings**: the F-word (hey, it's KKBB), violent death (later chapters will include violence and other unpleasantries and sexual content... and slash)  
**Preliminary Notes:** Written for a prompt at the KKBB kink meme.  
The title comes from the Jackson Browne song "Lives in the Balance" and it'll make more sense in later chapters. I know where I'm going with this story, but I don't know how many chapters it will end up being, nor how fast I'll be able to update. I'm also not sure how bad I'm going to make it in the middle, but my general policy is to only use graphic content if it forwards the story or is otherwise necessary.  
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"Could you repeat that? I don't believe I heard you right." Perry's hand tightened around his cell phone.

The police detective – a contact of Perry's – gave an uncharacteristic nervous cough. "I said, we need you to come in to identify the body of your partner, Harry Lockhart. I'm terribly sorry."

_Sorry_. What did that ever mean? Perry, dry throated, rasped," I understand." He didn't, really. "I'll be there in half an hour."

He pressed the END button on his phone and slowly lowered it. It nearly fell from his nerveless fingers. He gripped it tightly again when he felt it slip. His brain slowly processed the words. And the only logical solution of "Harry" plus "body" that his mind could find was "mistake."

Perry raised his phone and speed-dialed Harry. He would shout as many combinations of idiot and four letter words he could imagine - as soon as Harry answered the phone.

An obnoxious tone and a recorded message were all that greeted him, however. Still, that could mean any number of things. More likely a dead battery than a dead partner. The only thing he could do now was go to the county morgue and prove to himself and the police that this was all one huge un-fucking-funny mistake.

His police contact was waiting in front of the doors for him when he got to the Department of Coroner. Perry was glad of that. It saved him having to utter impossible words that might somehow gain a semblance of truth if voiced. "Lieutenant Morales," he greeted the cop.

"Perry, I'm sorry you had to come down here for this." There was that word again.

Perry had had 30 minutes in his car to recover himself and get back into character. He gave the cop one of his signature _you have 30 seconds to thrill me_ looks. "Brief me," was all he said.

Morales led the way down to the morgue, explaining as they walked down the ghostly fluorescent lit corridor. "Campus police at Long Beach State got a call at 6:10 this morning. Early morning jogger found what they thought was a body under the bleachers by the track." Perry's stomach clenched at the words. "To make a long story short, it was a badly burned body." Morales pulled open the door to the morgue. They entered and a silent Department of Coroner employee joined them. "What remained – that was identifiable – can unfortunately only be linked to your partner."

Perry heard the words with a sense of unreality. Even the room around him seemed to have misted edges, as if at any moment it would dissolve away like a dream. "Show me." Once he saw that the corpse was a faceless idiot and not his own idiot, he could vociferously abuse the police force and get back to the real world. And his job. And vociferously abusing his own work force.

"It's not pretty," Morales warned as the coroner grasped the edge of the sheet on the nearest table.

Perry's usual wit failed him, so he settled for a sharp reiteration of his previous command. Morales nodded to the coroner and the still silent man pulled back the sheet.

It was anything but pretty. Perry fought against his gag reflex at the sight and smell that assaulted him. He looked away quickly, raising a hand to his nose. Burned humanity was not something a person should have to encounter. Perry nearly lost control when he recalled that the police were claiming that this blackened mass was Harry.

The coroner coughed nervously. "Mr. Van Shrike, I'm going to need you to work with me here." He coughed again as Perry gave him a sharper than intended look. "Lieutenant Morales, if you'd be so good..."

"Perry, we really need you to look closely. We were unable to get any dental matches and the partial prints we got came up as viable matches to Harry Lockhart. There was also part of New York driver's license." Morales held up a small evidence bag. Still feeling sick and a bit light headed, Perry looked at it. "The part of the number that remains could be a match for your partner." The card was blackened and melted around the edges. The photo and signature were obliterated, but the "York" or New York, part of the ID number and an "H," an "a" and what could be an "r" or an "n" were distinguishable.

Perry had never understood before what people meant by "a sinking feeling." Now, though, it felt as if gravity were wrenching his stomach downward. And perhaps his diaphragm as well – his ribs did not seem to be expanding enough for full breathing. He clenched his fists, manicured nails digging into palms, and twitched his head to the side before looking Morales in the face again.

"Perry, does Harry Lockhart have any distinguishing physical characteristics?"

"Half his left ring finger is gone," Perry replied. He swallowed audibly and shifted his gaze to the body. His eyes moved quickly to the left hand which the coroner had carefully raised. He tried not to absorb too much of the view on the way.

The digit in question was missing its terminal phalange. Perry's stomach sank further as his heart rate picked up and a slight buzzing seemed to build in his ears.

"Anything else? ... Can you recall what he was wearing the last time you saw him?"

"Gray sweatshirt." Perry's eyes slid to the remains of a zipper that clung to the torso of the corpse. "Blue jeans." There were tattered black remnants. "Digital wristwatch." Slightly melted band and cracked crystal on the left wrist. And there was the side button - the one for the light - worn to base metal from all the times Harry pressed it, childishly enjoying the illuminated display. "Oh, _fuck_."

Perry turned and stumbled toward the sink that was on one side of the room. His vision darkened and he found himself instead on his knees, retching into a floor drain.

"Perry!?" Morales called out to him in concern. The policeman crouched down by him and put a hand on Perry's back as he heaved.

"-e bastard..." The words were hemmed by a pant and a heave.

"Perry?"

Perry's left hand moved up to clutch Morales' collar. His eyes shifted to pierce those of the police detective. "You find the bastard, Morales." He tasted bile with the words. "You fucking find the fucking bastard that did this."

Morales heard the unspoken threat. "Find him before I do and rip his fucking heart out."

~to be continued~

**Additional Notes**: I actually did minimal research to figure out where the corpse would be taken.  
The prompt was for angst, so future chapters will feature it.  
The prompt was from the kink meme, so eventually there will be sex. Fear not!  
Go Beach! I decided to use my alma mater as a somewhat key setting because it's the place I know best in LA. Later chapters will probably include Perry abusing the Pyramid (CSULB's blue geometric gymnasium).  
Perry's voice is hard to do in angsty situations...

Feel free to review. I'd greatly appreciate it and it _might _help me update faster.


	2. Chapter 2

Morales tapped the tip of his pen against his notepad. The dull drumming sound seemed loud in the quiet room. He glanced at Perry. He knew the PI well enough to be surprised at the lack of complaint. Perry hated fidgeting.

Then again, Perry normally occupied any space he chose to be in as if it belonged to him. Now, though he was sitting ramrod straight in the folding chair opposite Morales at the small conference table. He was looking fixedly at the cup of herbal tea that was settled between his hands.

"Sorry to keep you here, Perry." Morales noticed Perry's brow furrow at this. "But I really think we should get your statement as soon as possible." They were still in the Department of Coroner. They had just moved to a small meeting room. "First, I'd like you to recount what you know of Harry Lockhart's whereabouts and actions the last time you had contact with him." Morales kept his tone professional.

Perry responded to the tone. He raised his gaze and fixed it solidly on the policeman. "I last saw Harry around 7 o'clock last night." Perry's tone and expression were likely the same as he used when reporting to his clients. "I'd asked him to do some work in Long Beach. I've got a target that likes to hang out in bars and lounges around the harbor. Harry was supposed to make the rounds and gather information."

"Do you believe either the target or your client to be dangerous?"

Perry laughed mirthlessly. "No more so than the average married couple."

"Alright. Did you hear from Lockhart later that night?"

"I insisted on bi-hourly reports. The last call I got from him was around 2AM. He'd managed to get some useful information, but he'd had to let a lot of people buy him drinks. He didn't seem in any shape to drive -- he sounded utterly wiped out and wasted -- so I told him to check into a motel down there." Perry paused and looked down at his tea again. Morales frowned at the tight expression on the other man's face. He had never seen him like this. Perry took a sip of the tea, but it did not look as if it went down smoothly. "I haven't had any contact since then. You called at noon. I didn't expect him to be up before that."

Perry stood up and began pacing the room. Once again Morales was surprised at the nervous behavior. He could almost see thoughts shuttling through the PI's brain.

Suddenly the cop was fixed with a sharp gaze. "You said..." There was a taut pause before the next words. "...the body was found under some bleachers?" Morales nodded. "Was there any sign of a fire in the vicinity?" Morales shook his head. "So the body was burned and moved. No way this was a simple mugging or a gang incident..."

"I concur." Morales almost smiled at his own words. Something about Perry van Shrike made him speak more elegantly than he usually did. "But I'm afraid I need to ask the questions now. I'm sorry, but--"

"Will you stop fucking saying that!" Perry exploded at him. Morales could only blink at the man who stood panting before him. Holy fuck, but this was a side of Perry no one on the force had ever seen. He had thought it down in the morgue and he thought it again now: this Harry Lockhart must have meant a great deal to Perry. He really had no idea what to say.

"Mr. van Shrike, please calm down and resume your seat." He opted to treat him like anyone he questioned who was not a suspect.

It worked. Perry mastered himself with one last audible pant and sat once more on the rusty chair.

"Thank you," Morales said drily. "Now, can you tell me if Mr. Lockhart had any enemies? Anyone that would want to hurt him?"

There was an edge of hysteria to Perry's laugh at this. "I've wanted to throttle him upon several occasions. But real enemies? Not likely."

"And you? I imagine you've pissed off a few people on behalf of clients."

"Of course, and some people for free too. But I really can't think of anyone who'd want... that kind of revenge. They're a pretty petty lot."

"Have you noticed anyone unusual or suspicious hanging about? Had Lockhart mentioned anything?"

"You mean apart from the usual Hollywood crowd?" That sounded like Perry's usual sarcasm, yet there was none of the delightful acid that would normally fill his voice. "No, I haven't seen anything. And Harry is not the most... He... wouldn't have noticed anything." The statement was finished in a near whisper

"What about Lockhart's family? Any problems there?" Perry merely snorted. "Anyone we should be notifying?"

"He's got a brother in Embry, Indiana. They're close enough. He should definitely be told." Perry's voice was still soft.

"Will he be able to come to LA? We really should have next-of-kin identification. Especially since we can't get a dental match." Morales furrowed his brow as he thought about that. "Can you tell me anything about that?"

"I've been bugging Harry about that. He hasn't seen a dentist since he was 10, apparently. I even offered him a dental plan, but he hates the dentist..." Perry seemed to notice his slip. His voice trailed off and he squeezed his cup of tea. The cheap Styrofoam cracked.

Tea leaked slowly onto the table, unnoticed by Perry and ignored by Morales, who focused on the PI's face. He was somewhat enthralled by the dark emotions that flitted across Perry's face and behind his eyes. It was like watching some exotic moth trapped in a room, fluttering against lights and windows yet finding no escape. Rare and beautiful, yet haunting and sad.

Morales was shaken from such melodramatic thoughts as the more violent of Perry's emotions broke free from its confines and the PI slammed a fist down onto the tea stained table. "Why are we still talking about this? How does this advance the investigation?" Morales did not even try to answer. "What do we know so far?"

"I'm so--" he cut himself off even before Perry's eyes flashed dangerously at him. "Look Perry, I need to be the one asking the questions here."

"Morales... Tony, please." The cop in him refused to budge. "OK, I'll make a deal with you. You keep me in the loop, and I'll do the same for you."

Considering Perry's resources and skill, that was more than fair. And he really did not want some perp's blood on Perry's hands. "Alright," he sighed, "but there's little to tell so far. Preliminary work has only got time of death at between two and five in the morning and probable cause of death as blunt force trauma to the back of the head." Morales hoped that information might be of some comfort -- that it had likely been quick and relatively painless.

"Is that all?" Perry's sharp eyes were decidedly his most powerful weapon. They seemed ready to pare Morales' brain down to the necessary facts and desired information.

"I'm afraid so, Perry."

"Then I'll be on my way."

"Wait."

"I'm not going to stand back and wait for the police on this. Present company excluded, but most of the force couldn't find a drag queen in West Hollywood!"

"I'm not asking you to stand back. I'm not an idiot. I just want you to be careful."

"Fuck careful."

"She's not my type." Perry did not smile, but he calmed marginally. "Look. Just for tonight. Go home. Make an early night of it. You can start as early as you like tomorrow morning."

"I want you on the case." Perry surprised him. They had worked together once and shared information a few times, but they were not exactly friends. Morales looked directly into Perry's eyes as the other man continued. "I trust you. You balance passion and a sense of justice." There was such intensity in those eyes right now. "I don't care what strings you have to pull or how many asses we have to kiss, but I want you on this case. You have to help me get this bastard."

"I'll do it." Morales could not refuse. "I'll find the son of a bitch for you Perry." He could not do anything less. Perry van Shrike never begged. "And then we can make sure the Sword of Justice fucks him up the ass."

"Damn right." Perry embodied smoldering righteous rage. "That is the kind of justice that Harry Lockhart deserves."

~to be continued~


	3. Chapter 3

Quick warning: language is just a tiny bit worse in this chapter.

* * *

Perry sat in the twilight of his Sunset Boulevard office, trying to turn off his emotions. His mind was fluctuating violently and incessantly between two emotional extremes. One, a frantic, fiery sensation that burned inward from the edges of his brain to consume his thoughts. The other, a jagged feeling which knifed up from his gut to lodge painfully in his chest.

Damn it all, but he needed to think -- to plan.

He needed to fucking **do** something.

He _had_ driven from the morgue to his Sunset Boulevard office. He had done _that_ on auto pilot. The surface streets were well known to him and relatively free of damned idiots who had no clue what fucking lane they needed to be in.

It was the next step that was the problem. Morales had told him to go home and rest.

How the fuck was he supposed to rest when he saw Harry's blackened corpse behind his eyelids if he so much as blinked for longer than a second?

No, he could not rest and he was not ready to go home. "Home" for Perry now had somehow, over the last few months, changed meaning. Home meant a place with random junk that accumulated in odd corners until Perry went on a cleaning binge and threw it all out. It was a place filled with drifts of cigarette smoke and trails of conversation that twisted between infuriating and endearing. It was alive with _Harry_.

Or had been.

Perry clenched his fists against his temples. No, he was decidedly in no rush to return to an empty house. But, unfortunately, most of the tools of his trade were at his home office. Sunset Boulevard hosted the offices of Sentron, Inc, the front for his P.I. business. It was a place to see clients if they insisted on meeting face to face. There was little he could do from here.

Perry stood up in another frenetic surge of restlessness and looked around. He blinked at the gloom. When had it started to become dark? He flicked on a light and searched the room -- his eyes seeking for something to latch onto. Some indication of his next course of action.

_Computer_, they found. _Internet_, memory suggested. And, _credit card reports_, some coherent corner of his mind nudged him.

It was a start. He would need to retrace Harry's steps in Long Beach. The records of Sentron Inc's company card would keep him on the right track.

He pressed the power button and waited for the PC to boot up. Fucking Windows took forever to load. As soon as the icon appeared, he clicked to open his browser.

"Fucking hell!" he shouted at the error message on his screen. Of all the fucking times to fail. He impatiently checked the cables and connections. He forcefully clicked the reload button five times before slamming his hands down on the keyboard.

"Son of a bitch!" He had just remembered that they were doing maintenance on the office building's server today. "FUCK!"

He was left with two choices: dash off blindly into his investigation, or go home.

He had driven home aggressively, his speed pushing 80 at times as he cut people off and ran nearly every red light between Hollywood and Santa Monica.

Perry parked in his driveway, got out, and slammed the car door. He pressed the lock button on his remote and flipped the key ring over to his house keys.

Deliberate steps brought him to his door, but his hand froze with the key in the lock.

_When did I become such a fucking __**fag**__?_ Perry violently twisted the key and pushed open the door. He stepped in, slammed the door and threw his keys down onto the side table. He took a deep breath, turned to face the living room and his eyes met--

Harry's favorite chair, with the blazer he had worn two nights ago still draped across the back--

The ficus Harry had bought him as a gag gift on his last birthday--

The terrace where Harry would smoke and absently watch the sunset, though Perry was never quite sure if his eyes were on the glinting water or the glinting bodies in bikinis--

He could smell the cigarettes even now.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck..." Perry murmured as he slumped down to the floor, his back against the door. His gaze fell on a pair of Harry's sneakers.

"Harry," he breathed, closing his eyes and beating his head back against the door.

He instantly regretted closing his eyes as memory assaulted him with images of burned flesh. He snapped them back open and raised his hands to his head, clawing his scalp.

The images would not leave.

Fuck it. He could not take this anymore.

Perry closed his eyes again. It was time to feed his rage -- to focus on hatred of the goddamned fucking son-of-a-bitch asshole that had taken his Harry.

Memory presented him with a vision of a face, hairless, burnt beyond any recognition of features. It seemed special care had been taken to obliterate that face. An echoing fire flamed the corners of Perry's mind.

He followed the vision down the charred neck. He traced it down the brittle black chest, along the scorched zipper to the abdomen--

And froze, a wrongness nudging his consciousness. Ignoring growing nausea, Perry examined the memory thoroughly, his mind offering details he had refused to take in before.

The zipper had curled down and around a small, but deep dip in the belly. That dip still held a pink hint of unburned flesh.

Perry jolted up and ran to his computer, pulling out his phone as he did so. He dialed Morales as he woke the PC from sleep mode and he feverishly entered his password as the connection rang.

"Perry, I told you to rest," was the police detective's greeting.

It was ignored. "Morales, I need you to send me that corpse's fingerprints right away."

"What? Perry we already matched--"

"Just do it!"

Something in the urgency of his voice must have registered. "Hold on," Morales said.

Painful moments later, an email popped up in his inbox with the digital image attached. Thank the god of anal retention that he kept his employee's fingerprints on file -- fingerprints he had taken himself.

"Why did I send this to you?" Morales voice came back on the line.

"Just hold on a minute."

Please, please, please, he thought as he ran the partial prints from the police through the recognition software.

"0% MATCH," the program informed him.

Perry began to laugh softly. "He's alive," he whispered.

"What?"

The laugh took on a manic tone in his own ears and he felt wetness on his cheeks. "Harry is alive!"

"Perry!?"

"Harry has an outtie." He probably sounded hysterical, but fuck if he cared. "He has a fucking outtie bellybutton."

"Van Shrike, what the hell are you on about?"

"You check the severed finger on that corpse -- find out when it was cut. Run whatever fucking tests you want, but that is not Harry Lockhart.

"Harry is alive," he half-sobbed, half-shouted into the phone as he allowed his tears to fall freely.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Notes: **Thanks for the kind and wonderful reviews so far. As long as I know at least one person here is enjoying this, I will continue updating here.

**Chapter warnings: **Um, yeah... There's violence of a nature that most people would call "torture" in this chapter. It's not too graphic (in this chapter), but be warned.

* * *

He was alive. That was the only thing Harry could be certain of at that moment. And the only reason he was sure of that was the hammering pain in his head. He must have had more to drink than he had thought.

And he must have passed out somewhere between that last bar and the Courtyard Inn. Or else Marriott's standards had dropped further, because the "bed" under his left cheek felt like cold, damp concrete. His nose twitched -- moldy concrete.

Harry half sighed, half groaned as he tried to wake himself up further. He tried to open his eyes only to realize they had been open -- it was just that dark. A slightly queasy feeling began in the pit of his stomach, as his eyes found not the slightest glimmer of light.

No place in L.A. was that dark -- not at any hour.

_Definitely time to get up_, he decided.

"What the fuck!?" he exclaimed, though it caused a sharp throbbing in his head. He was in handcuffs and those cuffs seemed to be attached to the floor. The sick sensation in his stomach increased and a tinge of panic throbbed in time with his headache as he realized he was also clad in nothing but his underwear.

_Calm down, Lockhart. Captain Fucking Magic, remember? Cuffs are easy enough._ Harry took deep breaths of the musty air and began exploring the cuffs with his fingers.

He was interrupted by a fluorescent light overhead suddenly blossoming to bright white life.

"Fuck," he groaned as he tried to hide his eyes in the crook of his arm. Daggers of pain stabbed all over his head and he nearly vomited.

"That _is_ your favorite word, isn't it, Harold Lockhart?"

Harry froze. He had not heard a door... Had someone been in here with him the whole time?

"Sleep well?" The voice was soft and the tone was neutral. It was male, but not too deep. Not menacing in the least, but Harry still felt a thrill of fear shiver down his spine. "Speechless? So unlike you."

It was the sibilants, Harry realized. The man drew them out and hissed them ever so slightly. And he was talking as if he knew Harry very well.

Harry squinted in the direction of the voice, but he was still too dazzled to make out more than a dark-clad figure leaning against an indistinct gray wall. Fragments of questions tumbled around and around in his head. He chose, "Who the fuck are you?" He did not expect an answer, but asking it made him feel more in control.

"That's not the most pressing question on your mind now, I think. 'Why am I here?' and 'What do you want with me?' are what you really want to ask." There was a disgusted snort from the figure. "You positively _radiate_ fear and weakness. How did such a useless, sniveling clod become Perry's partner?"

Harry's eyes widened at the name. Ignoring the pain in his head, he looked sharply at his captor. His eyes were beginning to adjust but they still told him little. The man was forgettably attractive in the way that half the people one met in Hollywood were. Average height and build, sleek dark hair, and even features -- nothing for eyes or memory to latch onto.

Only the voice stood out. Harry would have recalled that voice if he had ever heard it before.

"No, Harold, you don't know me," the snake's voice responded to Harry's unspoken question, "though I know you... And Perry. Yes, I know him very well."

_Fucking drama queen_, Harry thought, taking in the other man's affected mannerisms. "Well, then," he said, "just hand me my cell -- we can call up big P. and you two can have your gay little reunion without me."

Cobra Queen, as Harry decided to think of his captor, thinned his lips at this. Why could he never get grabbed by someone with a sense of fucking humor?

"Your feeble attempts at humor don't fool me anymore than they do yourself. You must know this is about--" Cobra Queen paused dramatically, "revenge."

"Then, why don't you call Perry out -- or whatever it is you guys do to settle bitch fights -- and leave me out of it?"

His captor lashed out suddenly, kicking Harry in the gut. Harry grunted and curled in on himself. "The only bitch here is _you_." Though in pain, Harry at least had the satisfaction of having cracked the pretentious facade. "Yes, I've been watching you for long enough to know _that_. Perry says jump and you ask how fucking high. Isn't that right, Lockhart?"

Harry's wit failed him. He could only stare up at the shadowed face of his captor, his eyes widening.

"What? Nothing to say to that, little bitch?" The man put his booted foot on Harry's shoulder, rolling the captive man onto his back. "Yes, I've been watching, learning, waiting." With each verb, he pressed his boot down into Harry. First his shoulder, then his chest, and finally his stomach. "And I figured out the best revenge." He scraped his boot across Harry's abdomen as Harry gritted his teeth. "Perry is a hard man to kill -- a hard man to even _hurt_... usually." He kneeled down, with a leg to either side of Harry's torso. "But, _you_..." He pulled a knife out from his breast pocket and flourished it in the light with a twist of the wrist. "You, Harold Lockhart, are very easy to hurt." Harry followed the knife with his eyes as it was brought slowly to his face. He hissed in pain as a tiny cut was made in his cheek. "And through you, I hurt Perry."

"You--" Harry's voice quavered out. He took a deep breath and clenched his fists above the cuffs. "You're more fucked up than you look if you think Perry van Shrike is gonna cry over his office bitch."

"Don't you fucking play coy with me, Lockhart! I've - been - watching - you." With each deliberate word, the knife nicked Harry's skin. "Maybe not in your house, but everywhere else. I've _seen_ you together and I _know_ that you're..." The next word was spat out, like bile. "...lovers."

"Jesus Fucking Christ! You **are** that fucked up!" He knew that would get him more cuts. He blocked out the pain and continued, "You need to get some fucking glasses, shithead."

"Don't fucking **lie** to me!" The man suddenly shifted his grip on the knife and stabbed it into Harry's arm. Harry could not hold back a howl of pain. "He let you into his house. He made you his partner in every fucking way." The snake's voice was filled with venom and his eyes, brought close to Harry's own by their current position, flashed with anger and something more.

"I'm not his partner! I'm a fucking stray dog he picked up out of pity."

"No..." breathed the other man, absently wiggling the knife in the open wound. "No, I've seen the way he looks at you." His gaze shifted upward, but he did not seem to be looking at anything in the small room. "Maybe you're too fucking _stupid_ to notice, but I'm not. The way he looks at _you_."

Harry froze, body and mind, as the smoldering eyes of his captor shifted back to him. The mix of hate and madness in that gaze promised one thing, and they promised it solemnly.

Pain.

"Yes, Harold Lockhart, you will bleed here..." The unbalanced man jerked the knife out of Harry's arm and began wiping the blood on Harry's cheek. "And you will die here." The hissing was not there, but the voice was still inhuman. "And Perry's suffering will be... _exquisite_."

Harry closed his eyes. _Perry, you fucking find me, and you fucking do it soon._

_Please._

_~to be continued~_

**Chapter disclaimer:** No insult to Courtyard Inn or Marriott was intended by the author in this chapter. Only Harry intended it and that's only because Dabney spoiled him with that nice hotel in Hollywood.


	5. Chapter 5

Morales placed the detailed coroner's report on his desk with a sigh. The otherwise zombie-like young coroner's eyes had lit up at the prospect of such an unusual case and he had produced exceptional results within hours. Morales' feelings of dissatisfaction would be totally unjustified, were it not for the legion of questions raised by the report.

Whose was the body in the morgue? Why had it been made to appear as Harry Lockhart? How had the fingerprints been switched in the police database? Where was the real Lockhart?

And what kind of sick fuck would sever someone's finger and then keep them alive for two weeks before killing them?

With another sigh -- this one closer to a groan -- the detective put his head in his hands and massaged his temples. It had been a long night of no sleep and no real answers. And no food either -- the coroner's report had unsettled more than his mind. He really ought to go home and get a few hours of sleep.

But the grim thought of facing Perry today with no information was more than enough to keep him at his desk. They had not spoken since the shocking phone call, but Morales was certain that the P.I. had not slept either. No, everything he knew about Perry told him that the P.I. would not rest until he found Harry Lockhart.

Of course, nothing Morales had known about the other man had prepared him for the tempest of emotions Perry had displayed in the last sixteen hours. The Perry he had known until then had been charming and scathingly witty, but always withdrawn behind a cool wall of self-possession. He had been professional and trustworthy, like any good P.I. ought to be, but also as blasé and empty as any Hollywood starlet.

Yes, Perry had been exactly that on the case they had worked together four years ago. Morales had been able to rely on the P.I. when his fellow officers had failed him. And yet Perry had scarcely batted an eyelash at the tragedy and injustice he had helped put right.

Morales leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, trying to reconcile the image of yesterday's Perry and the one of four years ago. _They're just too different_, he thought, drifting sleepily into memory.

Four years ago, Morales had been a newer, less jaded homicide detective. Back then, he had still believed that the police were a force for justice. Then came the case that changed all that...

One of their own had committed murder and his fellow officers had buried the evidence and kept their mouths shut. Even Internal Affairs had told Morales to leave it alone. The offending detective was too important (nephew to the commissioner) and the victim was a nobody (a male prostitute).

That was the darkest point in Morales' life so far. If he had pursued the investigation, he would have ruined his career. Yet his job would have been meaningless if he had let it go. Even just remembering now gave him a roiling feeling in the pit of his stomach.

And then he had been introduced indirectly to Perry. He had been talking with a friend -- a classmate from the Academy who had become a detective with the Santa Monica P.D. -- in a Cambodian-run donut shop. After receiving sufficient abuse for having selected such a clichéd spot for their meeting, Morales had related his predicament to his friend.

"How badly do you want to nail this son of a bitch?" his friend had asked.

Morales had felt ashamed to admit it but had answered honestly. "Not enough to sacrifice my career. Being a police detective is the only dream I've ever had."

"Well, I don't want you to give up the badge either -- sounds like the Long Beach P.D. needs all the honest officers it can find."

"So I let that slimy bastard get away with it?"

"I didn't say that. I only want to ask how much you'd pay to get him." Morales had looked at him quizzically. "I know a good P.I. He's not cheap, but he's discreet and reliable. He can find your evidence and get it to people in the press without anything coming back to bite you in the ass."

And Perry had done exactly that. He had found irrefutable evidence, gotten it to the right shit-stirrers in the media, and put an end to the cover-up. Through it all he had been subtle, intelligent, and hard-working. When they would meet in person, he had never failed to make Morales laugh in spite of his anxiety.

_Still, I never quite liked him_, Morales mused in his half-slumber. It had been the automaton-like coldness. The way Perry had seemed undisturbed by the murder, indifferent to the cover-up, and uncaring of the outcome after his job was finished. _The only thing he ever claimed bothered him was the fucking perp's voice_.

**Brrring**. He was startled out of his doze by the phone. "Morales," he answered before he had properly awoken.

"Good, you're there," came Perry's voice from the other end. It had that falsely energetic tone of masked exhaustion. "Have you got anything for me?" The anticipation was poorly concealed.

"Well, I'm afraid the powers that be here don't seem too concerned about finding your partner--"

"Fuck them. I'll find Harry. That's not what I need from you. Are you or are you _not_ a homicide detective? What've you got on that poor bastard in the morgue?"

_Poor bastard, eh?_ Four years ago -- hell, four months ago -- it would have been _the stiff_. "Not much about who he is, unfortunately, but more than I would like to know about how he died." Morales picked up the coroner's report -- it would be easier to read than to remember. "Cause of death was definitely blunt force trauma to the back of the head, most likely a baseball bat or piece of lumber from the splinters found in the wound." Something tugged at his memory there, but as it refused to come clear, he pushed it aside. "The body was soaked in lighter fluid before being set alight. Seems it was the standard sort used for barbeques and the like, so there's no tracing it." Perry did not need to know that there was a possibility that the victim had been set alight before being clubbed. "And you were right about the finger. The wound was... not that old."

"Morales." Perry's voice had lost its customary sharpness. "What aren't you telling me?"

"Perry, this is a police report. I can't tell you everything." He braced himself for an outburst.

"Tony, please. I need to know."

_Fuck._ Anger he could have dealt with, but this? "It seems the wound was in the second or third week of healing. The coroner commented that he would have noticed a fresh wound or something done post-mortem much sooner." They were dealing with someone who knew what they were doing. "And, Perry, there were also... some other things..."

"Spit it out."

"There were also apparent knife wounds in various stages of healing."

"You mean torture?"

"Well, that's a possible explanation--"

"Don't fucking mince words with me! You're telling me that whatever sick twisted son of a bitch took Harry is a torturer!" The voice on the other end nearly cracked on the last word.

"Well we don't--" There was a growl on the other end. "Yes, it looks that way." A sound like breaking glass came over the connection. "Perry!?"

The sound of deep, heaving -- almost sobbing -- breaths was the only answer.

"Perry, we'll find him. I know _you_ won't rest until we do. You need to know that _I_ won't either."

"Morales..."

"I can't let some sick bastard get away with maiming and murdering people in my town. And this partner of yours seems worth saving." _After all, he somehow turned you into a human being_.

"He is." There was absolute certainty in that voice. A tense silence followed those two words.

"Perry, may I ask what you're going to do?"

"I'm going to go over the crime scene." Morales started to protest but was cut off. "I know the police and probably a thousand too-fucking-nosy undergrads went over the place, but there may be something..."

"A message? You think someone's trying to get at you?"

"I don't know, but I have to look."

"I won't tell you no, but I will ask you to be careful. And I want you to meet me for lunch. To compare notes," he added when Perry started to protest. "I'll need to stop by Campus P.D., so we can meet at this Chinese restaurant nearby after we're both finished."

"It had fucking better not be Pick Up Sticks." That sounded like Perry.

"No, real Chinese. It's on Palo Verde."

"Right. You've got my cell number?"

"Of course. I'll call when I'm ready." _And I'll get you some results if it fucking kills me_. "Morales out."

~to be continued~


	6. Chapter 6

"405 fucking _parking lot_!" Perry shouted at the morning traffic on the freeway, slamming his hands on the steering wheel. "Oh, that's _great_!" He snarled at the driver who pulled in front of him, almost clipping his fender. "Come right over, bitch."

He resisted the urge to lay on the horn, but it was harder than usual.

Usually, Harry was in the passenger's seat making laughing commentary on California drivers and Perry's road rage.

"You sound like my sister-in-law on PMS." Then he would giggle. "It's GMS! Gay Man Syndrome!"

Perry turned on the radio. He really hated the morning shows, but it was too quiet in his car. _Anything but Seacrest_, he thought, pushing the buttons for his presets in turn.

By the time he found something relatively innocuous, he was near his exit. He began the careful process of changing lanes even as a large, blue structure came into view.

_Definitely the right tasteless place_, he thought as he turned onto Bellflower Boulevard. Honestly, who would choose a big blue pyramid for a gymnasium? Someone trying, unsuccessfully, to pass themselves off as French?

The offensive structure was hidden temporarily from sight by trees as Perry turned into the CSULB campus. As, he had read, there were no gates and few fences. It would be so easy for anyone to drive right in at any hour. And, as there was apparently no curfew for the dorms, that driver would scarcely be noticed.

He turned left to head toward the parking lot that was nearest the track. It was pretty packed, but he managed to find some guest parking near the Pyramid -- apparently there was a restaurant in there, too, but Lord knew what kind of food they served.

Perry sighed and turned off the engine. As he pulled the keys out of the ignition, he felt a wave of exhaustion -- temporarily kept at bay by irritation with the traffic -- wash over him. Feeling slightly dizzy, he closed his eyes and rested his head on the steering wheel momentarily.

Behind his lids he saw Harry, tied up and shivering in some dark hole. A shadow passed between the bound man and Perry -- a shadow holding a knife that glinted ominously in some stray fall of light. The knife made a wicked hissing noise as it sliced through the air before cutting Harry's flesh.

"Help... Perry!!" Harry cried between screams of pain. "No, stop!" The voice was gurgled and choked by blood running into his mouth.

"_**NO!!**_"

It took a moment for Perry to realize that it was his voice screaming as he jerked awake in his car.

"Fucking hell..." When he heard his voice sounding much too soft and high, he repeated the words in a shout. "_Fuck_ing Hell!"

He violently opened his car door, stepped out, and slammed it shut. He stormed off in the direction of the track, barely remembering to lock the door. He had work to do.

The track was not too far from where he had parked. There was a low fence around most of it, but nothing designed to keep out a determined unwanted visitor. It was an unremarkable sight -- the usual spongy cork-like material with a grassy field within and low aluminum bleachers without. It looked like the police had finished whatever on-site investigations they were going to do as there was no yellow tape in sight.

Still, he could find the spot -- some naive souls had placed flowers on the spot to honor the dead. _It wasn't Harry_, Perry reminded himself as he walked to the spot.

He crouched down when he reached it and surveyed it acutely. Nothing jumped out at him. He sighed and started to stand up.

"Are you, like, a cop or something?" a young voice interrupted him. Perry looked up to see a thin blond girl in a track suit.

"Yeah, I'm _like_ a cop."

The girl ignored or failed to notice his mocking tone. "So, like, are you here to investigate that dead guy?"

"Why? You think you can help?" He used his most condescending tone. _Go away, Ditzylocks. Go find some gum to chew._

"The police didn't find anything, ya know."

"That's great. Do you think _you_ might find a clue?"

"I'm blond, it's my job to be clueless." Perry blinked at this show of brain activity. "But I do notice stuff. And this track is _totally_ mine. I could tell you if anything was, like, wrong..."

Perry heard the request in her trailed off statement. "What do you want?"

"I think 50 bucks and an apology would cover it."

He smiled wryly at this. _If Harry and Harmony ever have a daughter_… "25 up front. The remainder and the apology if your information is good."

She considered it with a tilt of her head. "'kay." She held out her hand and Perry gave her the money. "Look at this." She indicated the back of the bleachers. "See all the scratched messages?" The aluminum was scored here and there with names, words, numbers, and symbols. "Usual college shit, right? But look down here." She pointed to the second row from the bottom. "_That_ gives me the freakin' creeps. No _way_ that's the usual crap."

Perry got down on his hands and knees. He saw a black spot on the back of the bench. Scorch mark? But that did not make sense. The body had been burnt elsewhere. He peered closer and saw the message.

And felt a shiver run up and down his spine, making his head spin and his stomach churn.

"Gives ya the willies, doesn't it?"

"Yeah," he answered dimly, still staring at the sickening letters. _Fucking understatement of the century_. The message was terrifying.

"_PvS + HL_**"** had been scratched into a heart by something dull, like a key. Then, the lower letters had been scorched by a lighter and the whole message slashed through by something decidedly larger and sharper than a key.

All in all, a clear message. Some sick fucker was going to--

"So, that worth the rest?" the girl thankfully derailed his train of thought.

"Yes it is," he replied. He handed her the other 25. "I'm very sorry I belittled your intelligence, miss."

"Right. Apology accepted. Gotta run."

Perry made some absent-minded farewell, but did not watch her run off and then around the track. His gaze returned with sick fascination to the message. Dark, wordless thoughts spun in his head along with a kaleidoscope of emotions -- no one feeling remaining long enough to be identified as "fear" or "guilt" or "desperation."

_Someone is going to __**pay**_, he finally thought clearly, once again selecting anger as the most useful emotion. When_ I get Harry back, I will _eviscerate_ the sick son of a bitch. I'll... I'll..._

Before he could choose an appropriate fate for his enemy, his phone began ringing. He looked at the display, then answered.

"Morales, what've you got?"

"I'd forgotten that you consider common greetings like 'hello' or 'hi' or even 'Perry, here' to be a waste of time."

Usually, the cop's banter amused Perry, but not now. "What's up?"

There was a dramatic sigh. "I'll tell you when we meet. Trust me, it'll save time. I'm almost finished here, then, I've got to stop by Campus P.D." Perry sighed in impatience. "Don't get your panties in a twist! I'm just gonna grab the report and I'll bring it straight to the restaurant. I'll be there in about 45 minutes. Morales out."

Perry felt a hint of a smile tug the corners of his mouth. _He always talks like he's on a police radio_.

And as impatient as he was, he still appreciated Morales just acting _normal_, like this was any old case they might have collaborated on. _Good man_.

With that thought, he headed back to his car. He supposed he could review his notes in the car for a few minutes before moving to the restaurant...

His phone rang again. "What?"

"And hello to you, too, Perry."

"Harmony?" _Oh shit_.

"Yeah, Perry, is Harry with you? I haven't been able to reach him all last night or this morning. I'm kinda worried."

"Well, Harmony... Harry's..."

"Harry is what?"

_Fuck_. He did not want or need this now. What should he tell her?

"Perry? What is it?" Her voice lost its calmness.

Harmony was a big girl and she deserved the truth. "Harmony." He could hear her intake of breath at his serious tone. "Harry has been kidnapped."

"Who has him?" Only Harmony could sound frightened and frightening at the same time.

"I don't know, yet... But it looks like someone who wants to get at me..."

"Where are you?"

"Why?"

"I'm helping. No," she cut off his protest. "You know I can and you know I'll do it by myself if I have to."

"The son of a bitch has already killed somebody, Harmony. It's too dangerous."

"Don't fucking give me that shit, Perry! Harry is my boyfriend and the dearest person in the world to me. I'm not gonna fucking sit and wait by the fucking phone!"

"Long Beach," he relented. She was right, as usual.

"What?"

"Meet me in Long Beach, in front of the aquarium at five."

"I will." With that, she hung up.

With perhaps his tenth sigh of the day, Perry got into his car, started it up and drove to the Chinese restaurant where he was set to meet Morales.

~to be continued~


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter warnings**: There's more torture in this chapter, so please be warned.

* * *

Harry regained consciousness with the same companions as he had lost it with: discomfort, pain, and fear.

The discomfort arose from him being still chained to hard, cold, damp concrete. He was also still clad only in soggy underwear. Sometime during... last night's? ...ministrations (had it been the electroshock?) he had lost bladder control. Complaining about stench and weakness, his captor had drenched him with several buckets of water. There seemed to be a drain in the floor, so he was at least not lying in a puddle, but he was not dry.

The pain came from various cuts that lined his face and neck and from the stab wound in his arm. Then, of course, there were the dull muscle aches from the electroshock and from being so long in one position. With the pain of his head added to that, Harry was not sure if there was a place on his body that did not hurt. His spleen, maybe, wherever the fuck that was.

The fear, however, did not seem to come from any one place or thing. It was constantly buzzing around his thoughts. Occasionally it mixed with the discomfort to make him shiver in his fetal ball on the floor. At other moments, it would combine with the pain to cause retching, dry heaves that left him gasping and moaning, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes to join the moisture already dampening his hair.

Still, he had a thought (a hope) that he clung to, repeating it over and over in his mind like a mantra.

_I can get out of this in no time, if Perry doesn't find me first._

"Alacazam," Harry whispered as he clenched and unclenched his fingers, trying to get feeling back. If he could just get them to move properly, he could start working on the damned cuffs. He might have to dislocate a finger or two, but what was a little more pain? He laughed to himself, slightly hysterical.

"I can get out of this in no time." He was aware on some level that he vocalized the words this time. "If Perry doesn't find me first."

"Oh, even if you could get out of the cuffs, you'll never make it out of the room." The snake's voice came simultaneously with the light. Harry cringed away from both. "And Perry finding you is all part of the plan."

_All part of the plan..._ What the fuck was this melodramatic, sadistic fuckhead on about? "Could you _be_ any more B movie?" His voice was raspy, and he could barely squint into his captor's eyes, but it came out strong.

"Even now, your mouth doesn't stop. Is that what Perry keeps you around for? Your _hard-working_ mouth?"

Harry frowned at the emphasis and the leering smirk that went with it. "Actually, don't you know I'm the brains of the whole operation? I just keep Perry around because Hollywood loves his name." Damn, but it was hard to strike a cocky pose when chained to the floor.

A sickeningly affected laugh was the only reply he got to this. He was starting to feel positively nostalgic for Ike, Mike, and fucking Mustard.

"OK then, Cobra Queen." The laugh stopped. "What is this grand scheme of yours?" Harry got only a disdainful glare. "If we're going all Hollywood here, you have to tell me, you know?"

The other man cocked his head in an overdone contemplative pose. "Any partner worthy of Perry would have figured it out by now..." He pulled out his knife and began slapping the flat against his black-clad thigh. He continued his musing, "Still, I suppose I could tell you a story to help you sleep..." He moved closer to Harry, who could not stop himself from cringing again. "A story about the past, the present, and the future..." He stepped beside Harry and then, in a swift motion, straddled Harry's thighs even as he rolled the captive man onto his back.

"What the fuck!?"

"_Language_, Harold. I'm merely getting ready to illustrate my story." The contact and the hissing were doing nothing for Harry's nausea. "I'm not only going to so-kindly tell you the story." The man waved the knife before Harry's wide eyes before moving it down to cut the front of Harry's undershirt open. "I'm going to draw pictures to help your tiny brain understand." He pressed the tip of the blade against Harry's left pectoral.

Harry swallowed audibly, though his mouth was dry. "Er, thanks anyway, but I'm really not gonna be able to see that."

"Trust me, you'll get the general idea. Let's begin." The knife was shifted to the right pectoral. "Once upon a time, in the magical land of Hollywood, there was a famous detective named Perry." Harry bit his lower lip as a circle and series of lines (stick figure?) were carved shallowly on his chest. "Everyone thought Perry was _wonderful_, but he was really a cold, _heartless_ bastard." A broken heart? "One day, he met a smart, charming young man named Jake." Harry tasted blood from his lip as what was probably another stick figure was etched into the skin above his breastbone. "Jake thought they were friends, even dreamed about becoming Perry's partner in the P.I. business. But Perry _betrayed_ Jake -- made up _lies_ about him and _ruined_ his life -- for _money_." Instead of pictures, each emphasized word was accompanied by a deeper slash from the knife, as Harry's captor (Jake?) gazed angrily at the wall. "The newspapers said such terrible things – goddamned bloodless rumors -- about Jake, who lost _everything_." An X this time. "Meanwhile, Perry became richer, and more famous, and he even got himself a devoted little _pet_." Another stick figure, probably, but as Harry's chest and torso became one canvas of pain, it grew harder to tell. "So, somehow in this fucked up Hollywood scenario, Perry became the hero, while Jake was the villain, no matter what he did. So, Jake decided that if the press was going to _make_ him a vicious, sadistic killer, then there may as well be some _blood_ in those headlines!" With a giggle that made Harry shudder once more, Jake carved a wavy line across his abdomen.

"Not to put a stop to your evil pride parade, but what the **fuck** does this have to do with me?" Harry's own voice became hissy as it was forced out between his teeth.

"Shut up, Lockhart, I'm not finished." Jake nicked the tender skin of Harry's left nipple. The hint of a whimper from Harry's lips brought the smile back to his tormentor's face. "So, Jake decided to get Hollywood style revenge on Perry. First, he watched and learned and planned. Then, he made a nice, crispy corpse to play Harry Lockhart in the morgue."

"What? Why in fucking hell would you do that? No one will buy it!" _You psychotic fuck-up_.

"Oh, it'll work long enough -- I used the _best_ Hollywood effects."

"Long enough for what, psycho?"

The momentarily forgotten knife moved once more. "Long enough to confuse the police. Long enough to slow Perry down. Long enough for him to _mourn_ you."

"Why not... Why not just..." Every instinct told Harry not to ask. _Fuck instinct_. "Why not just kill me?" It came out much softer than he intended.

"Because, as much as your death might pain him, _this_--" Jake ran his fingers through Harry's blood, then raised them before his eyes with a flourish. "--will hurt him _more_. He will know that every _minute_ he cried over your supposed death, every _hour_ wasted in investigation, every moment _he_ failed to find you, _you_ suffered -- because of _him_." Jake closed his eyes and tilted his head back, licking his lips as if his thoughts gave him pleasure. "And then... Yes, then, when he _does_ find you, will be the _best_ moment."

_Holy fuck_. Harry felt fear like a physical sensation, ripping thoughts and twisting his gut, as he realized that the man straddling him was beginning to get an erection. _Fuck, no_.

"In my triumphant climax..." The stilted third person was gone from the telling. "I will kill you before Perry's eyes, while he is trapped here, helpless." He moaned throatily. "I can just imagine the look on his face. _God_." He opened his eyes again and focused them, glinting, on Harry's. "Can you?"

Harry could not. He did not want to. "No," he said, though he was not sure exactly what the negative was directed at.

"Stupid _and_ unimaginative. I'm almost doing Perry a favor here." The longer Jake's hard crotch was pressed against his legs, the more difficult Harry found it to concentrate on the man's speech.

He laughed more hysterically than before. "You know, if you're so good with the special effects, can't we just _pretend_ you tortured me?"

"I don't think you're that good of an actor, Harold, but..." Jake tapped the bloody knife thoughtfully against his chin. Harry's eyes fixed with morbid fascination on the red streaks left behind. "Perhaps we can make a little deal, hmm?" He paused. "Well?"

The words were squeezed out slowly between clenched teeth. "What's the deal?"

"In return for my story, I want _you_ to tell _me_ a story. A story about Perry." He began stroking his lower abdomen with his free hand as he caressed Harry's neck with the knife. "And it had better be good, Harold Lockhart. _Very good_."

~to be continued~


	8. Chapter 8

_A _story_? What the fuck does he want to hear? _Harry wondered. "What kind of Perry story do you want? 'The adventure of the gay cat in the tree' kind of story or the 'did you know Perry washes plastic spoons before throwing them away' kind?"

Jake's eyes flashed and his knife pressed sharply into the skin of Harry's neck. "You _know_ that's not what I want." Harry flinched as Jake brought his face closer. "Tell me how Perry makes love to you."

"What!?" Fear, confusion, and pain did not help Harry's comprehension.

"Allow me to clarify it to your tiny brain: you will tell me every - last - detail of how Perry _fucks_ you."

"I can't-- We never-- God damn it! I'm not gay!"

"Don't fucking _lie_ to me! I _know_." Jake went from lascivious calm to towering rage in less than a second. The speed of the change frightened Harry even though he had been sure a moment ago that he could not possibly be more afraid. "I'm not playing a _game_ here!" Jake moved the knife to the pinky of Harry's left hand, shifting his body against his captive. Harry felt the acrid tang of bile in the back of his throat. "Shall I cut off a finger? Shall I slice off a _few_ and mail them to Perry?" Harry began to struggle, panic taking over, but any movement he made seemed capable only of bringing greater contact with the sources of his panic. "Taking _this_--" Jake scraped the thumbnail of his free hand across Harry's navel. "--into account, Perry probably knows you're alive. But maybe he needs a little something--" Harry cried out as the knife was moved swiftly, cutting his pinky to the bone. "--to make sure he knows you're in pain." Harry could feel tears leaking involuntarily from his eyes again. "Well?"

"I'm telling you, we've never had sex. We're not a fucking couple. I can't fucking tell you about something that's never happened!"

"Then, you fucking _imagine_ it! And you fucking make it _good_!"

"OK!" Harry screamed as the knife sliced the lower knuckle as well. "OK -- just give me a minute." Harry released a small sob of relief as the knife was pulled away. "I've never thought about it before..."

"If you take too long about it, I'll have to _motivate_ you again." Jake ran the bloody knife down Harry's cheek, then neck and torso as he leaned back. He crossed his arms and looked down at his captive expectantly.

Harry shifted his own gaze to the dark ceiling. Where was he supposed to begin? He had said that he had never thought about it before, but the truth was that he had not _allowed_ himself to think about sex with Perry. That very combination of words _should_ have made him wince and sputter. However, there had been moments -- black marks on his straight record -- when his mental guard had come down. Now, he had to take all those buried thoughts, put them together, and elaborate on them to please this fucking sadistic viper.

Still feeling sick, Harry said, "I... I don't know how to begin."

"Start with the setting. Where are you and Perry?"

"We're..." Harry supposed it would be easiest to make it familiar. "We're in Perry's room. He looks like he passed out on his bed..."

"What's he wearing? How does he look?"

"He's sprawled out on top of the covers wearing slacks and a button-up shirt." There was a click of annoyance above him. "Th- the shirt is unbuttoned and I can see his chest and stomach."

"Details, Lockhart!"

"He's-- I... I can see his chest hair. It's thin, but dark because he doesn't bleach it. And from the collar of his shirt, I just can see the scar on his shoulder." He would never have forgotten that scar -- not when his eyes were instantly drawn to it by some magnetic combination of guilt and gratitude. "It seems to shine as it reflects the moonlight."

"And then?" Harry chanced a look at Jake. The other man had closed his eyes and his free hand had gone back to tracing circles on his abdomen.

Harry returned his gaze to the ceiling. "Perry looks cold, so I go to wake him up. He smells like alcohol and something fruity. I reach out to shake him, and then..." Harry remembered the time something like this _had_ happened. He had buried this memory deepest because, in the end, he had been disturbed by how _little_ it had disgusted him. "He grabs me and pulls me down on top of him."

"How does it _feel_?" Jake draws out the last word, his voice sounding slightly breathy.

"He wraps his arms around me and they're strong and warm." So they had been. "He doesn't say anything, just starts kissing me." The real thing had not started out great, but it had changed at some point. "He nips and licks my lips before he slides his tongue in-- into my mouth... He moves it all over and it's hard to breathe." Harry even felt a little dizzy now, just remembering. "He sucks on my lower lip as he slowly pulls away."

"O_oh_..." Harry tasted bile again at the sound. "And his hands?"

"His hands are..." He would have to start using his imagination now. "He starts taking off my clothes. I try to pull away, but he says 'Relax, gorgeous' and starts kissing me again. He opens my shirt and jeans. He pushes down my- my underwear." He did not want to continue, but Jake had switched the knife to his left hand and rested it on Harry's abdomen. "He st-starts jer-jerking me off."

"_Yess_," Harry heard hissed above him and it was followed by a sound that made Harry want to scream even before he properly registered what it was. It was the sound of a zipper, moving down slowly. "Go on." The voice caught on the vowel sounds.

"He is very good. His hand is... strong and... he t-touches me j-just right." One of Perry's conquests had waxed poetic early one morning. "I come after a while and Perry... licks it off his hand slowly, smiling." The man had commented blissfully on how sexy Perry had looked doing that, and Harry, still half-asleep had almost dreamily agreed with him before realizing what was going on. "He sucks the tips of his fingers, too."

"_God_!" Harry could feel Jake moving over him, but he refused to look. "Tell me _more_, damn it!" The flat of the knife blade was pushed into his stomach.

"He... He rolls me over onto the bed. He strips me completely, then himself." Harry closed his eyes and began picturing Perry -- it was better than focusing on what was happening. "He takes some scented oil and he puts it on his hands." Another Mr. Right for the night had mentioned that. "It smells kind of minty and spicy and earthy." The guy had really gone on about it and how it suited Perry. "He puts his hand on... in my..."

"_Jesus_, don't stop now!"

"He places his hand on my ass. I look scared, so he says, 'It's all right, Chief.'" _Fuck_ but Harry needed to hear those words. "It's all right, Chief," he repeated, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes as he felt Jake rocking above him. "He puts his fingers inside me and... gets me ready." He had little idea how things worked from there – hell, he barely knew how he knew about the preparation. "When, I'm ready... He... He... takes me."

"Fucking _yes_!" Jake is screaming now. "_How_? How does he take you?"

"He starts slow. And..." Harry could not find any details to fill in the blanks in his knowledge. "It hurts at first." It was that way with women too, right? "But Perry knows what he's doing. He hits all the right spots and soon it's very good. He tells me how hot I am and how great I am, while he--" Harry had to fight the next word out through gritted teeth as Jake's movements sped up and his moans became audible. "—thrusts... He jerks me off." Fuck, he had to end this. "Finally, we come together, calling each other's names."

And with an inarticulate howl above him, Harry felt Jake give one last jerky move. He felt something hot, wet and sticky shoot across his chest, some of it hitting his cheek. Harry began retching then, but there was nothing to come up except bile, though his stomach heaved violently. Jake moved off him and Harry curled onto his side, facing away, alternately gagging, coughing, and sobbing.

"Oh yes," Jake breathed. "That's... perfect." But somehow there were hints of anger in his otherwise satiated tone. "It's going to hurt Perry _so much_ when I kill you." Harry could not have answered even if he had wanted to. "_I_ always imagined Perry to be hard and wild, but _you_ imagined him so soft, warm... gentle." Jake began chuckling, but there was no humor in the sound. "I will kill you so _slowly_, Harold Lockhart, and I will _bathe_ Perry in your blood."

As he continued laughing, Harry squeezed his head in between his bound arms, trying, with minimal success, to cover his ears.

"_So_ slowly," Jake repeated, as Harry cried soft, breathy sobs into the concrete.

~to be continued~


	9. Chapter 9

Just want to say thank you for all the kind reviews so far! It's wonderful to know that people are enjoying this and it might even be helping me to write faster. I shall endeavor not to disappoint!

* * *

Perry parked his car in front of the small, shabby-looking Chinese restaurant. He got out and glanced at the health inspection grade in the window. A "B" -- good enough. He looked past the card into the interior, but he did not see any sign of Morales. He leaned back against his car and let the California sunlight -- so much clearer in Long Beach than Hollywood -- wash over him. The warmth tempted him into slumber, but he jerked himself upright as soon as he felt his eyes drift closed.

No, he thought. No time for sleep. No stomach for nightmares.

He heard the sound of a car pulling into the small parking lot. He looked up and saw something that made him _want_ to close his eyes: a pink Volkswagen Beetle. When the car parked two spaces away and Morales got out, Perry slapped his own cheek to make sure he had not dozed off after all.

"Morales, what the fuck are you driving?" In spite of everything, Perry found the corners of his mouth twitching around his disdainful expression. The twitching became a small smile when he was treated to the rare sight of Morales looking thoroughly embarrassed. "The most flaming fairy in West Hollywood wouldn't be caught dead in that."

"Well, Albert's more flaming than that. This is my brother's car," The police detective explained, sounding duly flustered. "Mine's in the shop."

"I'd rent something -- _anything_ -- else. But then, _I_ have taste."

"Stuff it, van Shrike. Let's go in."

"Lead the way, Princess."

They went in, and though neither of them was particularly hungry, they ordered some fried rice and pot stickers. Perry sipped the tea. Instead of the usual oolong blend, it was chrysanthemum. He held the cup near his face for a moment, letting the lightly fragranced steam take him away for a moment.

"Never could get into tea," Morales commented, wrinkling his nose as he swallowed a mouthful. "Like drinking grass and flowers. _Blech_."

"That's enough talk about taste from the man in the pink Bug," Perry replied as their food arrived. He took a set of disposable chopsticks from the cup on the table and broke them evenly.

"How do you fucking do that every time?" Morales asked, holding up his grossly uneven, splintery utensils.

"Trade secret, I'm afraid."

"Is van Shrike Dutch for 'self-important?'"

Perry gave him the finger with the hand holding the chopsticks, demonstrating his skills in manipulating said utensils as well. They were silent for a while as they focused on eating. After the first juicy pot sticker, Perry found his appetite, and he began eating less mechanically.

"Say Perry," Morales broke the silence, "you ever notice how these Chinese restaurants never have a table 4?" He indicated the small placards on the ends of the tables. The table next to table 3 was labeled "5." "Why is that?"

"Yeah, it's because in Chinese and Japanese, the character for four is pronounced the same as the one for death..." Perry's voice trailed off and the momentarily light mood – and return of appetite – disappeared with it.

"Well then, onto the business at hand," Morales said as he pulled a file out of his leather bag. "A lot of forensic work for very little information." It seemed to be a day for sighs. "What do you want first?"

"Any ID on the body?"

"As you recall, there was never much to go on. However, we have been cross-referencing missing person reports and coming up with about 20 possible matches for Los Angeles and Orange Counties." Morales paused for a moment, his brows furrowed. "We asked New York to fax us a hard copy of Lockhart's prints." A small ironic smile, directed at Perry. "When they see fit to actually do so, we'll see who they currently match up against in the database."

"You should have asked me to fax my set over before I left home." Morales looked pained at his own stupidity. "OK... Did your tech guys have any luck on the digital trail?"

"Well, the system isn't designed to log which user makes additions or changes." His tone said that that would change, if he had any say. "All they could tell me was that it was changed at 3:28 PM last Monday. The network doesn't allow remote access, so it must have been changed on site somewhere." A note of concern crept into Morales voice as he considered the implications. "This whole thing is a fucking quagmire!"

"24 hours, Morales. You can't expect all the answers to magically appear in that time."

"I'd settle for _one_ question being answered." It really was not right for a homicide detective to sound petulant. "Those lead-assed _shitheads_ in forensics were still working on the physical evidence and those useless _fucktards_ in Campus PD never canvassed the neighborhood!" Morales followed his tirade with some inarticulate combination of a growl and a cry of rage.

"Well, I at least found an answer -- of sorts. Or, to be more precise," Perry qualified further, "I had a doubt settled."

Morales calmed down remarkably quickly. "You sound like you'd rather remain in doubt."

Perry had no answer for that. Not even "yes and no" really encompassed his feelings on the matter. "Just look at this." He handed Morales a digital camera, pushing the photo display button as he did. After the call from Harmony, he had had the presence of mind to go back and photograph the baleful message.

"Jesus Fucking Christ..." Morales continued swearing in Spanish, something Perry had not heard him do since they had first met. "So it is revenge?" The cop asked when he had brought his train of obscenities to a stop.

"So it would seem." Perry liberally poured venom on each word. "But I can't figure out why they went after _Harry_. The only big case we worked together was the Dexter case and everyone involved in _that_ is dead."

Morales eyes widened and he looked hard into Perry's eyes. "You really can't?" He sounded utterly perplexed.

Perry ran a hand through his already less than immaculate hair. "Shit. Fucking quagmire, just like you said."

"So, we're still in the same position as before: following the few leads we've got. I've got the fingerprints and you've got..."

"**Don't** do that again," Perry said with a frown, mimicking the gun-style pointing Morales had just done. "I've got the names of a few bars in the harbor area," he explained to the cop, who was trying with little success to copy Perry's previous move with the chopsticks.

"By yourself? **Not** a good idea."

"Actually, someone'll be with me." Perry sighed yet again. "Harmony -- Harry's girlfriend -- is an even more determined bitch than you."

"Harry's _girlfriend_?" Confusion seemed to be Morales' favorite expression today. "I thought... You seemed..." His hand dropped to the table. "You and Harry aren't... _you know_?"

"What? No. Harry's straight." Perry had not meant that last statement to come out as a sigh. "He's my assistant, that's all."

"Oh... Well, that's..." Morales took a sip of tea, grimacing as he did so. "Your assistant? Not partner?"

"Harry can barely take care of _himself_. Trying to handle half a business would make his head explode." Perry's eyes moved to the sky outside the window, but did not focus on it. "The one time I let him take pictures on surveillance, we got twenty shots of Harry's fingers. Somehow, he managed to capture all nine and a half of _them_, but not a single shot of either of the people we were following!" He moved his gaze back to his companion. "What?" he asked, noticing the knowing smirk Morales was giving him.

"Nothing," was the smiling response, but the grin soon faded. "I guess, speaking of _nothing_, we should get back to work." He picked up the check as he said it. "Pay at the register," he responded after Perry directed a questioning look at him.

"Right. 'Back to work' works for me -- I want to check out the lay of the land before the bars open. What about you?" They paid the sleepy cashier and headed for the door.

"Well, I'm going to see if Tweedledee and Tweedledumbass in forensics have anything for me yet."

"Well, knowing you, you put the fear of God in them before you left."

"You kidding?" Morales asked as he pushed open the door. "I put the fear of _you_ in them!"

~to be continued~


	10. Chapter 10

Perry glanced at his watch as he approached the Aquarium of the Pacific. There was still a good half hour until five, but he had finished his groundwork here. And, chances were, Harmony was already waiting for him.

"Patient" was never a word he had used to describe the actress... Not that it was an apt descriptor for Perry himself these last few hours either, though.

Usually, the finer details of detective work -- the stuff Harry liked to call "boring shit" -- were what Perry enjoyed most. It was like putting together a puzzle -- the more pieces there were, the more satisfying it was when one finished the puzzle.

But not this time. Not when half the pieces had sharp, jagged edges to them and none of them seemed to match up. Not when the picture taking shape seemed to become more frightful by the moment.

"Perry! There you are!" The familiar voice was followed by a rapid clacking -- the sound of someone running in high heels. "Where have you been?" Harmony stood before him, anxiety flashing from her eyes and radiating from the hands she held, trembling ever so slightly, between them.

"I was doing groundwork." Commenting on the time would likely provoke a violent reaction. "Checking where there are cameras."

"Cameras -- you mean like security cameras?"

"And ATM and traffic cameras."

"Won't the police check those?"

"They're not looking for Harry -- they're looking for a murderer."

"Fucking assholes." She startled a group of kids coming out of the aquarium. "Who needs them?" She began pacing the sidewalk in front of Perry, her heels clicking a rhythmic pattern on the sidewalk. "Perry!" She startled him out of his brief mesmerized state. "You said the fucking piece of shit who took Harry has killed already." She stopped pacing, her eyes and voice sharpening on him. "_How_ do we know?"

"Because he faked Harry's death."

"He _what_?"

"He killed someone -- we don't know who, yet -- and made the cor-- it look like it was Harry."

"How?"

Unbidden, memory surfaced -- the black, nine and a half fingered body in the burnt remains of Harry's clothes. "You... don't want to know."

"Perry!"

"You don't want to know!" Only when he saw Harmony's eyes widen did he realize he had snapped. "Trust me."

"Oh my God, Perry. You fucking _saw_ it?" He gave one sharp nod. "You... thought it was Harry?"

Perry turned away from the softened expression in her eyes. "For a while." What the fuck was wrong with his voice today. "But that's not important now." That was better.

"But Perry, _why_?"

"Why what?"

"Why would someone kidnap Harry and go to all that trouble to fake his death? What are they do--"

"**Don't** fucking ask that question." The words came out without thought, but with a force that surprised him.

It shocked Harmony, too, if her frozen posture was any indication, and he prepared for an angry retort.

"You're not used to this, are you?"

"What?" Not remotely the expected response.

"You're not used to having something -- _someone_ -- to lose." Her expression at that moment was so like Harry's.

"I don't... We don't have time for this." Perry straightened his shoulders and turned his head to the side.

Harmony sighed. "Right. What are we doing here?"

"We're retracing Harry's steps from two nights ago and collecting information."

"You mean, like, questioning people?"

"Exactly."

"How are we doing this?"

"Well, splitting up would save time..."

"Perry, you said this asshole was probably trying to get at you. Do you think it's a good idea to go by yourself?"

_Harmony, too?_ "We don't have _time_ to play it safe."

"Well how many places are we going to and what the fuck are they?"

"Four bars and a cocktail lounge." All the places on the credit card report.

"Fine. We split up _inside_ each joint." She held up a manicured hand to his protest and he noticed absently that more than one of the nails was chipped. "You take bartenders, I'll take bouncers." She moved her hands to her hips and glared at him. It was one of the things Perry liked about Harmony -- that even from a shorter height, she could really stare you down.

"Fine. Let's go."

"Thank you for your time," Perry told the seventh bartender (in the fourth bar) of the evening, though by that hour, it came out as insincerely as it was meant. Perry sighed, set down his glass, and turned to scan the room for Harmony. He had left her talking with a bouncer, who had seemed to have had a great deal of information to impart to Harmony's breasts.

_I hope one _iota_ of it, at least, is fucking useful._ Perry was not sure what he had thought he would get from the rounds of questioning, but it had come to nothing so far. The staff they had spoken to so far had "kinda recalled" Harry because he had been asking questions, but no one had seen anything that had registered as unusual.

Perry could see neither Harmony nor the bouncer. From the overwhelming smell of tobacco which had emanated from the bouncer, Perry supposed a smoking break was a high probability.

It was only when he stepped into the relative quiet of the street that he realized how obnoxiously loud it had been inside. And cloying. He took a deep breath of salt-scented air -- and coughed. Definitely a smoking break.

He turned toward the source of the smoke and saw Harmony. However, it was not the bouncer she was talking to, but some girl. He moved closer, tuning into their conversation.

"Thanks," the girl said -- apparently Harmony had given her a light. "God, _California_! Love the beaches, hate the 'smoke free' bars!"

Harmony laughed, but Perry could tell it was her Hollywood laugh. "My boyfriend complains about that, too."

"Boyfriend, huh?" The girl gave a drunken snort. "Men can be such pigs."

Perry was about to step in and break up the conversation -- they did not have time for bitch fests -- but Harmony caught his eye and shook her head minutely. "Oh, but some of the pigs are kind of sweet."

"I guess so."

"Not all the guys you meet here can be that bad." Perry knew her well enough to hear the fishing tone in her voice. The bouncer must have given her a tip.

"Well, there was a guy here, the other night. He gave me a light, too. Come to think of it, he complained about California, too." A laughing tone came into the girl's voice. "He was funny. He told me he played the pipe organ until he lost his finger!"

Harry! _Come on Harmony, find out what she knows!_

"That sounds like my boyfriend -- I hope you didn't go home with him!"

"Naw. I thought he was making a pass at me, but he just wanted to know if I knew any cheap hotels nearby..." The light tone left the girl's voice and she shivered.

"Are you OK?"

"I just remembered... Some other dude came up after he left --started asking me if I knew where the first guy was going." Both Harmony and Perry perked up at that. "I just told him, like 'some hotel.' I mean, the guy seriously gave me the creeps."

Perry felt a scrabbling sensation in his stomach as Harmony asked, "Why is that?" Her acting skills seemed to fail her -- Perry could hear the same anxiousness in her voice.

"It was the guy's voice." The words caused further disquiet to shiver from Perry's gut and thrill along his nerve endings. "He sounded like a _snake_. Ugh!"

"_Shit_..." Perry breathed, buzzing filling his head and gravity focusing on his stomach.

"Perry?" Harmony's attention shifted to him, but he was unable to answer.

Memories eddied around his mind, but the whirlpool centered on one, red tabloid headline.

_Jake the Ripper._

_"Fucking hell." _

~to be continued~


	11. Chapter 11

Fuck all. That was what Forensics had gotten -- after several hours of delay -- from the physical evidence. No fluids, no fibers, no hairs, and not the smallest smudge of a print.

All that those useless, lead-assed morons had been able to tell him was that the wood splinters from the head wound were all unfinished. Oh, and the wood was probably pine.

"Great, I'll start hauling in all the DIYers, carpenters, and god-damned lumberjacks from two counties right now."

It took every fragment of Morales' will not to ball up the report and throw it in the wastebasket. _Ripping it into teeny tiny fucking shreds will be far more satisfying_, he thought, moving his fingers to the top of the page.

"Lieutenant!" called a voice from across the room.

"There are three lieutenants in this room right now," Morales responded. "Which of us do you want?"

The desk sergeant -- an overeager young officer with an overloud voice -- laughed nervously. "Um, you, Lieutenant Morales. We got that fax from New York -- the one you've been waiting for."

Fucking _finally_. "Bring it to the scanner," he told the sergeant, moving to the island of desks and equipment that comprised Homicide's computer station.

They scanned the prints into the computer and began processing them through the recognition software. "Come on, you Stone Age piece of junk." The equipment was not all that old, but Morales' patience had worn out when he had returned from lunch to find that the fuckwits from Forensics had only just started work.

"You seem pretty invested in this case, sir." The sergeant hovered by Morales' elbow.

"There's a strong chance this son of a bitch will kill again." That was, unfortunately, entirely true. "I'm not going to let that happen."

"Well, you give him Hell, Lieutenant!" The sergeant called cheerfully as he returned to his post.

"Thanks," Morales returned absently, still waiting on the software. He was reminding himself mentally that hitting the computer would not speed it up, when it finally made the ping that indicated a match. "Right, let's see who Harry Lockhart became."

He looked closely at the display. "Davis, William," he read, "former runaway... two arrests for prostitution..." _A male prostitute_?

"Shit." _Wait_, he thought, disconnected facts starting to move together in his mind. Male prostitute... killed by blunt force trauma from a piece of lumber... and Perry. "_Fuck_."

Morales dashed back to his desk and picked up the coroner's report. He rifled through it feverishly until he came to the photograph of the victim's face. He examined it closely, suppressing his gag reflex. There -- on the cheek, a series of small, rough wounds. He traced the shapes with his fingertip: a "J" and an "R" and a spade. Very like the device on a ring that had once been a key piece of evidence.

"Jake Riker..." Morales remembered -- could never forget -- the name, and the crime, that went with that ring... "Holy fucking shit."

If anyone could want violent, sadistic revenge on Perry van Shrike, it was former LBPD detective Jake Riker (or Jake Viper as the many officers who had disliked the man had liked to call him). After all, if it had not been for Perry, Riker would have gotten away with murder.

Morales pulled out his phone and dialed Perry's number in a frenzy. "Perry!" he began as soon as the other man picked up.

"Morales, I know who's got Harry. It's Jake Riker."

"Yes, I know. Jake Rik-- _Wait_. How the fuck do you know?"

"Found a witness. How do _you_ know?"

"The victim. He was a male prostitute, killed with a two by four, with marks on his face just like the ring you took off Riker."

"Damn," Perry breathed. "Morales, I thought he went to prison. What the fuck is he doing out?"

"He was in jail until the trial two years ago, but the jury found him not guilty -- not enough evidence, apparently."

"Fuck. What happened after that?"

"The victim's family filed a wrongful death suit in civil court. Riker fled to Mexico -- or so we thought."

"Well I guess he got fucking tired of margaritas and tacos." How could Morales have forgotten how scathing Perry's sarcasm could be? "What've you got on that asswipe?"

Morales had already moved back to the computer. He held the phone with his shoulder as he typed furiously. "Shit, why is everything so fucking _slow_?" The database search results came up painfully slowly. "I'm sorry, Perry," Morales apologized as he surveyed the disappointing results. "No address and no associates or kin who would touch him with a ten foot pole." No, all the man's friends and family in the police force had dropped him faster than a moldy donut since the scandal had broken.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, _fuck_," was the eloquent reply. Then Morales heard a feminine voice on the other end. "They've got nothing," Perry answered that voice and the police detective heard an echo of Perry's earlier obscenities, followed by what sounded like someone kicking a dumpster.

_Wow, I'd like to give _her_ a go at Riker before this is all over_. "I'll keep at it Perry. I'll follow every last fucking lead we got here until we find that son of a bitch."

"Keep me posted. Harmony and I will be staying in Long Beach for the night." So, Harmony was the girlfriend's name. "I'll text you her number, just in case."

"Perry, I think you should leave this to us." Morales tried to put all the unease he was feeling into his voice. "Jake Riker is an unstable man who likely blames you for destroying his life."

"You think I don't know that, Tony?" Perry's voice was equally serious and soft. "But that fucking viper has Harry." How could one name be layered with so many meanings and emotions? "And there is no fucking way in Heaven or Hell that I am leaving him there."

"Perry! You know this has gotta be a trap!"

"Oh, I'm _counting_ on it." Morales had never heard the PI laugh like that. It fucking gave him the chills. "I'll be in touch."

"Perry, wait!" But it was too late -- the connection had already been terminated. "You be careful, asshole," he said to his phone.

Morales set his phone down on his desk, feeling disquiet curdle in his stomach and wrinkle his brows. _I have to work fast_. Something told him he had better find Riker before Perry did.

_Perry can take care of himself_. "Bastard wouldn't die even if you shot him." Morales forced a weak chuckle. _No, I need to find Riker first because I don't want to have to arrest Perry for murdering the sick son of a bitch with his bare hands!_

Keeping the delightfully tempting image of a dismembered, but still breathing, Jake Riker firmly in his mind, the detective called out to one of his colleagues. "Hey Johnson! How we coming on those surveillance reports?"

~to be continued~


	12. Chapter 12

Harry was curled up alone in the dark again. At least, he hoped he was alone. The thought that Jake might still be in there with him made him mindlessly struggle against his restraints.

_Calm down_. Harry took a few deep breaths -- slowly moving air in and out of his lungs through trembling lips. He tried to breathe through his mouth as much as possible. It reinforced the dry feeling of his tongue, but it avoided the iron odor of his own blood. As well as other smells...

The darkness was a mixed blessing. It meant he could not see his own wounds (or the white stain which had stung them until it dried). Yet it seemed to highlight the memory of the reception of those wounds. And it offered his imagination suggestions of what he had not seen (because he had refused to look) but only felt.

Yes, the dark and silence left him more at the mercy of his imagination and his other senses. The unpleasant smells and tastes.

And the ever-present, all-encompassing pain. There was nothing to take his mind off it. He tried picturing more pleasant things, places, people.

But somehow the images always twisted. Thinking of Harmony inevitably led to sexual thoughts... which left him softly beating his already sore head into the concrete floor, trying to block out his most recent memories.

He tried thinking about home. The warm afternoon sunlight streaming in the large windows. The salty ocean breeze rustling papers on the desk before brushing his face. Jake peering in the windows, a knife glinting in his hand.

"_Fuck_," he tried to say, but it came out the barest whisper. _God damn Jesus fucking Christ on the fucking cross fucking hell shit on a stick._.. He kept a mental string of invective going until his breathing again returned to normal. _Come on, Lockhart_, he tried to scold himself, _do something fucking useful. How about these fucking cuffs?_

Harry once again tried to get to work freeing himself of his restraints, but the moment he moved his slightly numb fingers, pain throbbed in his cut pinky. That made him flinch, which caused every other wound and ache in his body to cry out its own agony.

_Shit_. He needed to keep his mind off the pain until he could get his fingers moving properly. Then, he could focus on slipping out of the cuffs.

_What would Jonny Gossamer do_? Harry asked himself.

Jonny Gossamer... There was an idea. "Moonlight glinted off the shiny wet asphalt of Sepulveda Boulevard," Harry began reciting in a faint, dry rasp. He continued the introduction to the mystery story -- one Harmony had made him memorize for a readers' theater they did together at school -- as he flexed and straightened his fingers. Trying to recall all the words certainly kept his mind occupied.

"Jonny flicked his still smoldering cigarette onto the sidewalk. Trouble always visited LA after the rain. Trouble was... was..." He could not remember what came next. "Trouble--"

"Is your business. Right, Harold?" hissed that hateful voice from the darkness.

Harry started, causing pain once more to sweep through his body. Where was the bastard? Where the fuck was he? Jake had not yet turned the light on, breaking his pattern so far. That made Harry even more nervous and panic fought pain for domination of his consciousness. _Fuck_, he was too scared and hurt to even manage to pass out.

"Jonny Gossamer? Tisk, tisk, such poor taste." That voice was going to haunt Harry's nightmares for the rest of his life -- however long that might be. "Well, at least you're literate." The light was finally flicked on, but Harry did not react to it -- he had already closed his eyes. "What, nothing to say?"

_Fuck off, shithead. Crawl back under whatever fucking rock you were hiding under before. Go play in traffic. Get stuffed._ There were many things Harry wanted to say to his captor, but he did not have the energy. Besides, it was what the fucker wanted.

He cracked open his eyes and saw Jake's feet in front of his face. "Nice shoes," he rasped. "Look expensive."

There was a moment of stillness above him, but it was soon broken by that god damned affected laugh. "I might actually miss you, Harold Lockhart." The laugh became more genuine, darker. "But not as much as Perry will miss you." Jake slid a foot under Harry's cheek. "Up on your hands and knees, Lockhart. It's time to get ready."

Harry just continued staring at the feet before him. Whether or not he responded, fucking Cobra Queen would go on with the show.

Jake sighed. "You're not much fun right now."

_Then why don't you fuck off and go play with yourself?_

The foot was pulled away from Harry's face as Jake sighed even more dramatically. He moved away -- back toward the spot he usually appeared in -- but he soon came back and set something in front of his captive's face.

Harry struggled to focus on it. A dog dish? _Fuck off_.

"You need to drink, Harold. I have a feeling Perry will be coming soon, and you need to be ready." Harry moved his eyes upward, but he could not make out the other man's features -- not with the light behind his head. "Come now, you can't scream for help very well with your throat all dry. Drink," he commanded. Harry still did not move. "_You_ were the one who called yourself a stray dog. Now drink like one, _bitch_." Harry glared up at Jake, channeling all his fear and pain into anger and striving to beam it out of his eyes at his tormentor. Who laughed delightedly. "_Now_ we're having fun again. Come now, drink your water like a good dog and then you can bark at me some more."

_God, I fucking hate you! _Harry shocked himself with the strength of the thought. The only other person he had despised that much had been Harlan Dexter. That asshole, of all the people Harry had shot, had been the only one not to appear in nightmares. _Oh, if I had a gun right now..._

But all he had was a fucking dog dish of water. _Fuck it_. Harry slowly and painfully struggled onto his hands and knees. Jake again chuckled with enjoyment and shifted the dish into a better position with his foot. Harry brought his face close to the water and sucked up a small mouthful. He swished it slowly around his mouth, trying to get all the dried blood that coated the inside of his mouth. Then, he spat it quite accurately onto Jake's leather shoes.

The laughter that had been bubbling above him during the process died abruptly. "You son of a bitch!" The hissing was more pronounced than ever. Harry suddenly felt a shoe pushing down on his head. His arms gave out and his face fell into the water. "I told you before, this isn't a fucking _game_!" The foot kept pushing down. Harry managed to turn his head and get his nose out of the water, but he had already gotten some up his nose and in his airways. "You do not fucking _mess_ with me, _dog_." Jake pushed down harder as Harry choked and sputtered into the dish.

With one last, sharp push, the foot was removed. Harry continued to lie there, on his side, with his head still in the dish. Pain radiated through his body yet again as coughs continued to rattle his battered frame.

"Now, as I was _saying_, we need to prepare for Perry's arrival." Jake had calmed down again by the time Harry's choking had subsided. "We need to get you into position." He crouched down, once again pulling out that damned knife. "I'll need to uncuff you for a minute, but we can't have you thinking about fighting or running, so..." Harry felt his panic bubbling back up as the knife moved out of his line of sight. Jake put his free hand on his captive's leg and shifted his weight onto it.

_What the fuck is this psycho doing now?_

The answer came in the form of stabbing pain ripping into first one thigh, then the other. Harry screamed in agony but all that came out were sharp, high pitched gasps and pants.

"God, you are so _pathetic_!" Jake exclaimed as he wiped the knife on Harry's underwear. "Now, we have to set the stage."

Harry could feel one wrist being freed and the cuffs being pulled out from whatever held them to the floor. But before he could even think about doing anything about that, his captor was hauling him into a standing position. He cried out again as his weight was forced onto his bleeding, injured legs. Jake showed that he was stronger than he looked, clearly, as he held Harry -- whose legs would not take his weight -- upright. He dragged the weak, bleeding man to one wall and pinned him there with his body.

"Fuck off," Harry managed to get out weakly. So much body contact nearly made him vomit up the tiny bit of water he had swallowed moments ago.

"Just... have to... get you in place," Jake said as he ran the free end of the cuffs through some loop on the wall. "There we go." Harry's free wrist was once more circled by a cuff. "Perfect position."

Yes, perfectly painful. Harry was left with the options of keeping his weight hanging from his arms or held up by his legs. If he hung from his arms, the stab wound in one throbbed and the cuffs cut sharply into his wrists. If he tried to stand, it felt like his legs were being stabbed again, over and over, until they gave out.

"Yes, now let's keep the shredded, bloody undershirt. It's so _artistic_." Jake's tone was musing as he cocked his head to the side and tapped the flat of the knife against his cheek. "But the wounds... I like all the blood, but it makes it so hard to see each individual cut." Shaking his head, Jake pulled a lemon out of his pocket. "Nothing like lemon juice for bloodstains, you know? Let's clean you up a bit, shall we?" With that, he began slicing the fruit into neat, even wedges.

Harry closed his eyes, welcoming the blissful unconsciousness that came so kindly before Jake's hands.

~to be continued~


	13. Chapter 13

"So who the hell is Jake Riker?"

Harmony had been incredibly patient, for her, after the phone call from Morales. She had started to question Perry the moment he had ended the call, but he had asked her to wait until they checked into the motel. She had lit up a cigarette as they walked -- a very clear sign of agitation -- but she had kept quiet.

That ended the moment Perry closed the motel room door. "Well?"

"An old case," he clipped out, "and very bad news."

"That's not an answer, Perry."

Perry sighed. "He was a Long Beach police detective who murdered a male prostitute. Maybe you saw the headlines four years ago?"

Harmony frowned in concentration for a moment, then her eyes widened. "You mean Jake the Ripper? I thought that was more tabloid gossip than anything else."

"Well, they exaggerated a bit."

"OK. What's this asshole got against you?"

Perry did not reply right away. Harmony deserved to know, but he was not sure how much he wanted to tell. The bare bones of the story would not explain Riker's hatred of Perry. The meat of the story, however, contained actions that Perry was just learning to be ashamed of.

Perry leaned back against the door. "I'm the one who exposed him." Judging by Harmony's crossed arms, that was not enough. "Riker's fellow officers had been covering up the case. Morales hired me to find evidence and leak it to the press so that the police would no longer be able to conceal the crime."

"That doesn't explain why he'd go after Harry! Harry wasn't even in LA then!"

"It's not easy to explain..."

"Well try, for God's sake!" Her momentary stillness passed and Harmony began pacing in front of him.

"Jake Riker was a policeman because it was the family business. What he really wanted to be was a private eye. I had already approached him under the pretext of needing police assistance on a case when I found that out. I used that to get closer to him. And..." Perry did not want to continue, but Harmony would know if he held things back. "And when I picked up on his latent homosexuality, I used that, too."

"You seduced him!?" She halted her pacing and faced him straight on.

"No, but I led him on... in many ways." Perry had not cared back then. Why should he have? It was just another case. "When the story broke, he knew who had betrayed him." And with how unstable the man had been -- Perry had suspected bipolar disorder, amongst other things -- he would have taken the betrayal pretty hard.

"But God, why Harry!?" Harmony asked in a sharp, pained tone that made it clear she was not asking Perry. She collapsed down onto the bed. "I know this isn't really your fault, Perry." Her tone was soft again, muted. "But if we don't get Harry back... I may not be able to forgive you."

_That's fine. I won't be able to forgive myself_, Perry thought, looking at the floor.

The edgy silence stretched between them for a tense minute until Harmony spoke again. "So, what do we know about this fuckhead Riker's current whereabouts?"

"Unfortunately, nothing. He was believed to be in Mexico."

"What about his old address?"

"Lived with his parents. They would never take him back. He has no known associates at this time, apparently."

Harmony jolted up from the bed. "Well you must know something, God damn it, if you got so fucking close to him!"

"It was just another fucking paycheck." Shit, he must be tired -- to snap like this. "I didn't listen to half of what that drama queen hissed on about if it didn't have to do with the case!"

"Well remember the half you did fucking listen to!" Harmony had grabbed Perry's shirt and was glaring straight up into his eyes. Her own were filled with sharp emotions that stabbed into the P.I. "Remember something -- _anything_, damn it!"

"Give me a fucking second to think!" He shook her off and walked to the desk that stood against one wall of the room. He pressed his hands onto the surface, leaning over it, and closed his eyes.

_Think, damn you, think! _There had to be something in what Riker had told him in his incessant monologues. Some hint of where that snaky bastard might take Harry...

"Did he have any other family?" Harmony asked from behind him.

"Not that would claim him now."

"Friends?"

"He wasn't very socially adept. He was friendly with some of his fellow officers, but they cut ties pretty quickly. Scandal is contagious, as you know."

"Boyfriends?"

"Wouldn't even admit to himself that he was gay."

"Girlfriends?"

"Like I said, he had trouble socially... Wait." Something snagged at Perry's memory. "I remember him going on and on about an ex. He bitched endlessly about her, but he was still considering getting back together with her. I think she had her own issues... Damn, what was her name?" Perry racked his brain.

"Did it begin with an A?" Perry shook his head. "B...C...D--"

"Deanne!" The letter caught him. "No, not Deanne, but something similar..." Perry froze -- his memory snagged in another, unpleasant direction. "Shit." He pulled his small datebook out of his pocket, but he did not really need it to confirm what he knew. "The client -- fuck!"

"What client, Perry? What the hell are you talking about?"

"The client for the last case Harry and I were investigating was a Diana Lewis. Jesus! That fucking viper set us up!" He turned and threw his datebook across the room. "God damned fucking son of a bitch..." The stream of obscenities could not even begin to express his feelings. Anger predominated, with a good half of it directed at himself -- you would think that all that Alison Ames bullshit would have made him pay more attention to clients' identities.

"We have to call your police buddy right away! They can find her and she can take them to Harry!"

"No." The negative came out before he had even thought about it.

Harmony's frenetic motions stilled again. "Why the fuck not?"

"If the police go, he'll kill Harry." There was no doubt of that. Perry was the ultimate target of Riker's sick revenge plot. If he was going to be arrested with his scheme unfinished, he would consider killing Harry to be cutting his losses. "I have to go."

"Perry, that's insanely stupid!"

"But it's the only way to save Harry." He kept his voice soft, but firm.

Harmony closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Alright. But we need a plan."

"Really? I was all set to just run in guns blazing."

"This is no fucking time for sarcasm." The complaint was muted. "It is time for coffee, though. You look like an absolute wreck."

"I'll make it," he said, moving toward the sink and vanity area. There was a coffee maker there with filter packs of likely abysmal coffee. "You call down to the front desk and get us a Long Beach phone book," he called to her over his shoulder.

"Right."

Perry glanced over his shoulder as he prepared the coffee pot. Harmony was facing away from him as she made the call. From an inner pocket of his jacket, he pulled out a small packet. He could imagine Harry's shocked (and profane) question if he ever found out that his boss carried sleeping pills around. It almost made Perry smile as he put the contents of the package into the carafe.

He heard the phone being cradled behind him and brisk steps moving to the door of the room. Harmony tapped her foot as she waited impatiently by the door. _Harry needs her safe_, Perry thought as he watched hot black coffee begin to drip down over and dissolve the small white pills. _He'll need her after this._

"Thank you," he heard Harmony say and then the sound of the sound of the door closing. He realized then that he had been standing mesmerized for quite a while.

The coffee was ready. He poured two cups and joined Harmony at the desk. She gratefully accepted a cup and began drinking, impervious to the heat of the liquid.

"Diana Lewis, you said?" She was already flipping through the phone book.

"That's right," he replied, miming taking a sip of his own coffee.

"God, why does that bastard's girlfriend have to have such a fucking common name? 'Lewis, Curtis... Lewis, Daniel... Lewis, Fiona...' Damn! Perry, we're never going to find her this way. Fuck!" She downed the rest of her coffee then glared at the empty cup, as if angry at it for not being some strong variety of liquor. "What the fuck are we going to do?"

"We'll use the computer in the lobby. We might find her listed somewhere on the Internet." He sounded more optimistic than he ought to have felt. The truth was, he already had the client's address. _Son of a bitch told me from the start where to find him._ "I'll go down and check."

"You are not going without me!" Harmony stood up swiftly as she said it, but began swaying. The drug was as fast-working as the doctor who had illicitly supplied it to Perry had promised. "I'm going... with... you..."

Perry caught her as she fell. Her eyes were overflowing with accusation before they closed in slumber. "Sorry," he said softly before laying her on one of the beds. Then, he retrieved his datebook from the floor and reopened to the page with Diana Lewis. Her address was written there in Perry's neat handwriting. It was on Orange Avenue, not far from the university campus.

Urgency dueled with common sense in Perry's brain. The urgency lashed out with desperate slashes, shouting half-coherently that every moment he delayed, Harry could be in pain or dying. Sense parried coolly and replied that rash action would only get them both killed.

"Plan," Perry murmured, but the word refused to become what it represented. The P.I. was just too fucking tired to think properly. "Fuck it."

He strode to and out the door of the room and went to the stairway. He unnecessarily checked that his gun, a replacement Vector, was in place as he hurled himself down the steps two at a time. When he reached the bottom, he also checked his Derringer, earning himself a scandalized stare from a passing woman. The small gun was still snug against his balls -- right where he had put it when he had arrived at the harbor.

_Harmony's right, this is stupid, _he chided himself as he got into his car and turned the key in the ignition. But stupidity and luck had saved them before. He could see no option now but to hope that they would do so again.

The traffic lights, at least, seemed to be on his side. He drove through green light after blessedly green light as he made his way to Orange Avenue. He parked his car under a large jacaranda tree a couple blocks away from the house that belonged to Diana Lewis.

As he approached the residence, he contemplated his options. Ring the doorbell and shoot the bastard when he came to the door? That was no good -- Harry could be in another place and Perry could not ask a corpse (the word gave him a brief shiver of satisfaction) any questions.

He surveyed the house. It was a tidy-looking one storey house with barred windows. There was no car in the drive, but there could still be a vehicle in the garage. Perry moved around to the side of the garage. There was a small side door with its window blackened by paint. It was so conveniently unlocked when Perry checked it.

He pulled out his gun and held it ready, safety off, at his side. The door opened soundlessly as he slipped inside. He kept it open and in the ambient light could make out...

Another door? This one was heavy-looking and latched on this side. Perry ordered his agitated stomach to still as he manipulated the latch and pushed the second door slowly open. It too made not the slightest squeak, but only darkness lay beyond.

_Shit_. He was going to need light. He felt along the wall inside the darkened room until his hand found a switch. Before he flicked it on, he decided to close and lock the door to the outside. It would at least slow down anyone who tried to move in behind him. Then, gun held in sweaty hand, he flicked the switch.

And could not contain the shocked, angry hiss that escaped his lips at the sight before him. He had exert all his tired will not to run to his bleeding friend, who hung (unconscious, he prayed) from cuffed hands on the opposite wall.

He quickly moved his eyes away and around the room. No one else was in the room. The gray, oddly soft-looking walls were unadorned. A vague memory stirred Perry's mind. Diana had been in a Goth band, according to Riker, and had spent quite a bit of money on a soundproof room. This was it, apparently.

Perry's eyes continued around the room, taking in the bloodstains on the floor with mounting anger and nausea. There was no other point of entrance or exit.

He left the door open and made his brisk, quiet way across the room to Harry. _What has that god damned fucking sadistic snake bastard done to you? _Dozens of angry red lines crisscrossed the smaller man's (thankfully slowly rising and falling) chest and abdomen. _I'm going to draw and quarter that fucker over the course of days._ Some of the cuts seemed to form pictures and there were deep gashes on his legs that still oozed thick, red blood. _I'm going to scrape out his entrails with my bare hands and shove half down his throat and half up his ass._

He had to be angry now -- he could not afford weakness. He checked the doorway behind him, but there was no sign of Riker. Leave Harry like this and look for the viper, or get Harry down and out of here ASAP?

Then, Harry stirred. He turned his face from the light and into a wounded bicep. Pitiful raspy whimpers escaped him as he struggled to find some position that was not painful.

Perry felt the corners of his eyes crinkle and become hot. "Chief..." His voice was a cracked whisper. He reached out a free hand to his assistant's wounded cheek. "Harry, I'm here." He gingerly caressed an unblemished part of Harry's sweaty, stubbled cheek.

The tortured man turned his head toward Perry and opened his eyes. The P.I. moved his hand to shelter Harry's eyes from the light. "Perry?" It was barely a dry whisper.

"No, it's the Queen of fucking Sheba." What the fuck was wrong with his voice? "Yes, it's me. I'll get you out of here in a--"

Perry was cut off by a tiny hissy pop that preceded a sudden burning pain ripping into his shoulder.

"You can't leave yet! You just got here." Fuck how he hated that voice. "The party's just starting."

Perry caught himself with hands on the wall to either side of Harry. He fought the blackness assaulting the edges of his vision long enough to make sure that this time the bullet had not passed through him to harm Harry.

_Thank God for small fucking favors._ The last thing Perry saw as he slipped into unconsciousness was the horrified look on Harry's pale, blood-streaked face.

~to be continued~


	14. Chapter 14

***Thanks again to the people following this story who have been kind enough to review. And thanks too to _anyone _who's following this story. It's a pleasant (though high-pressure) feeling to know that people are looking forward to my writing.

Anyway, this is probably not the chapter you all are _really _waiting for, but I hope you enjoy.***

* * *

Morales strived to focus his tired eyes on the monitor in front of him. He could not remember the last time he had been so exhausted. "What am I looking at, Johnson?" he asked the officer who had been going through security video footage for him.

"I think I found him, Lieutenant." They had had a definite time frame, but there were so many places in L.A. County to check. Each city's PD (with multiple branch offices), County PD, the Commissioners' Office, the Office of the Chief (again with multiple branches), and the morgue. Johnson had started with the morgue and branches of the Office of the Chief. Those places had cops from so many different PDs going in and out that an unfamiliar face, as long as it had a badge, might go unnoticed.

Of course, Jake Riker should not have been unfamiliar. He must have used a disguise. "Play it," Morales commanded.

"Well, once I had a better idea of height, age, and sex, it was a bit easier," Johnson explained as the video resumed playing on screen. "Then again, even without that, this guy stood out. Check out that tash!"

Morales almost did a double take. "Jesus _wept_! Fucking Freddie Mercury walks into the Office of the Chief and nobody blinks an eye!?" The guy on the screen might look like Riker if you examined him closely, but the eyes were drawn inexorably -- as was likely the intent -- to the thick, dark mustache that dominated the man's upper lip.

"Well, look sir. It's a County uniform. Some of them are an odd lot."

That was true. County Police took care of the park areas of L.A. and some of them were little more than park rangers. "Can we see anything useful on the video?" Morales contained his anger, though with so little sleep it was difficult. This was not Johnson's fault. The people he needed to shout at were at the Office of the Chief for being denser than lead and the fuckwits at County who lost a uniform. "What the fuck!" And possibly some shit for brains here. "He's logging into the computer _just like that_! Johnson!"

The younger officer was sharp. He picked up on what Morales wanted and began typing on the next computer. "Damn! You're right, Lieutenant. Riker's badge number is still active in the computer. He could just use his old login."

"I am going to make menudo of someone's entrails here! No one deactivated that sick fuck's badge number when he resigned!?" Morales was so pissed off and tired he could not find words in any language suitable to express himself. He settled for kicking the nearest filing cabinet.

"That's a fine dent, sir," Johnson said calmly, observing the damage.

"My shitlist just _tripled_ today. I am going to have so many asses to kick when this case is over, my foot may fucking fall off." Morales held himself back from any further violence, for now. "See if you can get that asshole's vehicle in the parking lot feed. Please," he added -- Johnson was a good man.

"Right." Johnson brought up the requested video and skipped to the necessary timeframe. Both men squinted at the screen. They watched "Freddie Mercury" Riker go to his car. "I'm not sure we can get enough of the plate, sir." All they could make out in any frame were the first letter and the last number of the license plate. A small tree obscured most of it as well as the vehicle logo while it was parked and everything was indistinguishable in motion. "I'll get on DMV records and cross reference white sedans and what we've got of the plate number."

"Thanks, Johnson. I really appreciate you staying so late, officer." It was well after midnight.

"Well then, I guess you know who to recommend when the next round of promotions come up." Johnson had an amazing ability to be cheerful without being annoying.

"No doubt." The department needed officers with more to recommend them than "not useless."

Morales left Johnson at the computer and returned to his desk. He picked up his notepad and reviewed his notes from the last couple of hours. So many pencil strokes, so little actual content. He had snagged every officer still at work who had remotely known Riker, but not a single one of them had had any useful information.

The sad, twisted truth was that Perry probably knew Riker better than anyone.

Morales glanced at his watch. It was close to two o'clock. The chances that Perry was sleeping were slim, but if he was, Morales did not want to disturb him. He would wait for the results on the plate, then decide what to do.

In the meantime, a little nap would not set him back any more than he already had been. It might even sharpen him up.

Morales slumped down in his chair and closed his eyes. The backs of his eyelids had never looked so enticing. He began relaxing his muscles, starting with his neck and shoulders.

_When this is all over, I'll use some vacation time_, he promised himself. However, his attempts to imagine where he might go for an extended weekend were preempted by doubts as to the outcome of the case.

_Jake Riker._ When they had first started working in the same department, Morales had felt sorry for the man. He had been awkward socially and hopeless at a job that fate had somehow locked him into.

That pity disappeared when Morales discovered the other man's complete lack of morals. Instead of remorse over his crime, the bastard had expressed only anger that it was threatening his lifestyle. He had blamed everyone (especially the victim), except himself. And he had refused to believe that he had done anything wrong.

It had been very wrong. Riker's first murder had been brutal. The victim had been beaten severely before finally being clubbed to death.

_Now he's refining his methods._ Morales blocked the memory of William Davis -- that poor battered body in the morgue. That bastard had used Davis for practice. There was no telling what evil he was inflicting upon Harry Lockhart. _Even if he's still alive, will he really be OK?_ Morales valued his life too much to confess these doubts to Perry, but they refused to fade.

_So much for a nap._ Morales opened his eyes and straightened in his chair. He looked over to the computers and saw Johnson still working. He went over to the junior officer. "What do we have so far?"

Johnson started, but wasted no time in recriminations. "Four possibles for the Long Beach area, twelve so far for L.A. and Orange Counties."

"Give me the four in Long Beach."

"We have Donald King, a 71 year old retiree." The younger cop brought up the file for each person as he spoke. "Diana Lewis, a 33 year old nurse. Lisa Tanaka, a 28 year old artist. And Antonia Gonzales, a 45 year old restaurant owner/chef."

"I don't recognize any of those names. Have any of those vehicles been reported stolen?"

"No, sir."

Morales looked at the addresses. "The old guy lives in Redondo Beach, but the women all live within easy distance of the harbor and the university."

"We could send a black and white to check them out," Johnson suggested.

"Bad idea. Riker tends to crack under pressure. He'd probably kill Lockhart." Morales released a long, growly sigh. "I'll call Perry." The P.I. might know something. Not to mention that he would hurt Morales if left out of the loop.

He pulled out his cell phone and dialed Perry. Instead of a ringing sound, he got a recorded message. _Dead battery,_ Morales hoped. That was the only safe option as Perry would never switch his phone off at a time like this. _I'll try the girlfriend._ He dialed the number Perry had texted to him.

"--llo," a very groggy feminine voice answered after several rings.

"Harmony Faith Lane?"

There was a sleepy moan before the answer came. "This is she. Did I get the part?"

"Part?" Morales was beginning to feel as confused as this half awake woman must be. "Ms. Lane, this is Lieutenant Tony Morales of the Long Beach Police Department."

"Police?" The voice was sounding more awake -- and sexier. Despite the seriousness of the situation, Morales spent a split second hoping he would have a chance to meet this woman.

"Yes. I'm a friend of Perry's." The word rang truer than it would have three days ago.

"Perry... **THAT** **FUCKING** **BASTARD!**"

"Beg your pardon?"

"That son of a bitch _drugged_ me!" There was a sound like something breakable being thrown across a room. "Drugged me and went off on his own! God damn -- _fuck_!"

"He _what!?_" Morales had been afraid the P.I. would go back to his lone wolf ways. "Shithead! ...Not you, sorry. Perry is the shithead. Where did he go?"

"I don't know. We were checking an address in the phone book but it wasn't there. That's when I passed out. Oh, I am going to shave his fucking head _and_ genitals and _shove_ the hair into that smug mouth!"

_Damn_, he really did want to give this woman a go at Riker. "Do you remember the name you were looking up?"

"Diana Lewis. She was an old girlfriend of that Ripper asshole's."

"Diana Lewis!" _**Yes!**_ "Johnson, print that address out!" He called to his fellow officer. "Don't worry Ms. Lane. We'll head right over there and sort this all out."

"What's the address?"

_Perry said she was determined, but..._ "I'm sorry Ms. Lane, but I can't give you that information."

"But Harry--"

"This is police business, ma'am." Morales hating using his _Voice of Authority_. "I'll inform you of the situation as soon as I can. Morales out." He pressed the END button on his phone. Vociferous protest rang out until the moment the connection was cut.

"We got him?" Johnson asked, looking eager for action.

"Yes, I believe we do," One way or another, this would soon be over. "You want to go for a ride, Johnson?"

The junior officer adjusted his hip holster and checked the one at his ankle. "More than ready, sir. Permission to kick serious ass?"

"Granted."

~to be continued~

**Author's Note: **It's Morales and Johnson insulting L.A. County Police, not the author. Please don't take offense!


	15. Chapter 15

Harry blinked his eyes rapidly, still trying to process what was happening. The light had come on but it had not been Jake. It had been Perry. Perry had come to rescue him. Then, Perry had fallen down. Harry moved his tired eyes to the floor where Perry had collapsed. Blood was beginning to slowly saturate the shoulder of Perry's jacket. He slid his eyes back up and squinted across the room. Jake was standing there, smiling, holding a gun with a silencer on it.

Jake had shot Perry. The meaning of the scene in front of him finally came to Harry's fuzzy mind.

_That psychotic bastard just shot Perry!_ Not caring about the pain it caused or the futility of it, Harry struggled against his bonds. His legs, however, would not hold him up for long. He could only hang weakly, painfully from his arms.

"Perry!" he tried to call out but his voice was still a pitiful rasp.

"God, you're pathetic, Harold. I haven't killed him -- not yet." Jake's eyes were narrowed with contempt as he looked at Harry. His gaze then moved down to Perry. His eyes widened and a gleam now unpleasantly familiar to Harry filled them. The psycho's lips shifted into a satisfied leer. "I've just rendered him more pliable so that I can get him ready for our next scene." Jake holstered his gun and pulled out another pair of handcuffs as he sauntered toward his bleeding captives. He knelt down beside Perry and examined his handiwork. "Perfectly placed. Enough pain and damage to cause unconsciousness, yet missing the major blood vessels. Don't you think it's perfect, Harold?"

_I think you're _perfectly_ out of your fucking mind. _Harry tried to communicate his _perfect_ hatred with his eyes -- the only part of his body he could move without increased pain.

"Well, there's no accounting for taste. _You're_ evidence enough of that. Now let's get Sleeping Beauty here in place." Jake slid his hands sensuously down Perry's arm to his wrist. He closed one side of the cuffs on that wrist and then began carefully sliding the P.I. toward the metal ring on the floor. "Damn Perry, but you have let yourself go a bit to seed, haven't you?" He got the unconscious man positioned with his arms behind his back, ran the cuffs through the ring, and circled Perry's other wrist with a cuff. "Now, let's get you upright." With more care than he had ever shown when manhandling Harry, Jake maneuvered Perry into a seated position with his back leaned against the nearest wall. It would be marginally more comfortable than Harry's current position.

When Jake had finished, he kept his hands on Perry's chest. "Still so strong," he murmured, sounding like a normal human being for the first time since Harry had been captured by him. Jake began moving his hands in circular stroking motions on Perry's chest. Then, he began moving the caresses lower.

Harry felt a slight increase in his ever present nausea. "Get your hands off him you sick fuck!" Despite his dry throat and overused voice, it came out with a satisfying sharpness. Jake, however, only turned a mocking smile toward Harry and moved his hands even lower, to the elastic waistband of Perry's pants. "You getting off on this, you fucking perverted _fag_?"

Jake did not freeze. He leapt to his feet and strode the short distance to Harry, who he viciously backhanded. "I'm not a fucking fag, you stupid, mouthy bitch!" Harry heard that through the ringing in his ears, but he could not see what the angry man's expression was. His vision had gone dark and sparks like stars flashed in the blackness. "Oh no you don't -- you're not escaping to insensibility _this_ time." Suddenly a sharp, pungent smell filled Harry's nose, causing him to give a nasal gasp. He turned his head away as best he could and coughed weakly. He felt Jake move away. "Now for Sleeping Beauty."

Harry turned his head back toward his captor to watch what he would do to Perry. The man held a small, capped vial in one hand. He knelt down again and opened it under Perry's nose and held it close to a nostril. In moments, the P.I. was replaying Harry's actions of a few seconds ago.

"Wake up, Perry. It's show time."

"Fuck, Riker," Perry spat out with a moan. "All these years and you still can't fix that damned speech impediment?"

Jake did not get angry. Instead, he chuckled. "Oh, but I do _love_ the way it makes you _shiver_." He said it against Perry's ear and the sickened man shuddered away from it. "But there'll be plenty of time for that later, seeing as you were so sweet as to come so quickly and to come alone." He chuckled again and Harry heard the promise of more pain in that laugh. Jake rose to his feet and returned to Harry, whose cuffs he began to undo.

_Shit, this is it._ Harry had felt so much pain and fear over the last God-knew-how-many hours. Now, he just felt a small, sad pang of guilt. _I got Perry into this mess._ The other man was only there, in danger, because Harry could not take care of himself.

The cuffs were freed of the ring or loop on the wall. Without that to hold him up, Harry collapsed to the floor. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth against the fiery sensations of pain shooting up through his body from every wound. He felt Jake's hand grip his underarms.

"Leave him out of this, Riker!" Harry's eyes snapped open and flew to his boss. Harry had never heard that voice from Perry before. It was filled with a promise of death. Perry's eyes smoldered with... rage? Pain? Hatred? Guilt? It seemed like all of those emotions, but Harry could find no word that fully encompassed it.

"Oh, but he's been doing such a fine job suffering for you." Jake patted Harry on the head. "I've been keeping an eye on you, from time to time, Perry. I saw your little breakdown in the university parking lot, Perry. Did Perry have a bad dream about his Harry?" The mix of the childish tone and the hissing voice was obscene. "Poor, Perry."

The cuffed man merely glared at Jake, purest loathing radiating from every inch of him.

Jake dragged Harry to a spot about four feet in front of Perry. Then, he shifted the abused man with his feet until Harry lay on his side before his boss. Harry could only hiss in pain -- it was like receiving each wound all over again. "See how much he's suffered for you already? See _here._" Jake pressed on the stab wound in Harry's arm. "And _here_, and _here_, and especially _here_ and _here_." With each repetition, Harry's torturer applied malicious pressure to a wound. Harry tried to hold them back, but tears began to leak from the corners of his eyes once more.

"_Stop_ it!" A tormented cry was ripped from Perry.

_Perry sounds like _he's_ the one being hurt…_

"Damn you to Hell, Riker! This is between you and me."

"Of course, it is," was the calm reply. "This is about causing _you_ as much pain as you caused _me_. And the only way I can do that is to hurt and kill the one you love."

Perry's eyes widened perceptibly. "You are out of your fucking mind, Viper."

"_Am_ I?" Jake knelt beside Harry and jerked the prone man up into an awkward, painful sitting position. "_He's_ denied it." He shook Harry's shoulder. "You're _trying_ to deny it. But I've _seen_ it. I _know_." The voice dropped low, pitched with venom. "You love this useless idiot. You love him and you will watch him _die_, helpless to save him -- just as I was helpless to stop you destroying my life."

"He has _nothing_ to do with any of this, you psychotic _faggot_!"

_Faggot?_ Harry's eyes widened and met Perry's. The distance between them seemed impossibly vast.

"That's rich, coming from _you_." A malevolent chuckle sounded near Harry's ear. Jake reached for his gun.

"Wait!" Harry gasped out.

"No good begging for your life, Harold. This must be done."

"I just..." Harry fought against his dumb, sluggish brain, striving for an idea. "I just... I want to say goodbye."

"Then _say_ it, Lockhart."

"I want to tell Perry how I feel about him -- before it's too late."

Jake froze, then burst out in his affected laugh. "This is _perfect_." He turned to Perry, whose face was creased with fear and confusion, but whose eyes held a spark that Harry recognized. "You could have had something here, after all, Perry." He laughed again, enjoying the perceived irony. "Very well, Harold, you can have your last little moment." He lifted Harry up and half-walked, half-dragged him to Perry, then dumped him in the P.I.'s lap. "Go ahead," he said gloatingly, backing up a couple steps, "let Perry know _everything_ he's losing today."

_OK Harold the Great, do this right or this will be your last magic act ever._ Harry gripped Perry's jacket and raised himself until he half straddled Perry's lap and his body blocked Jake's view of Perry's crotch. He put his left hand, still circled by a cuff, on Perry's stubbled cheek. His right hand was between them at waist level. He met Perry's reddened eyes.

_He looks like he hasn't slept for days,_ Harry realized with surprise. _Is this for me?_ He looked hard into Perry's eyes but the expression in them, soft and warm, was not one Harry had ever seen in them before. The nausea left Harry for the first time since he had awakened alone in this dark, chill room. It was replaced by a light, pleasant fluttering.

"I love you, Perry," he whispered. It came out so easily.

"I love you, too."

Without thought, Harry moved in and brought their lips together. Perry's goatee tickled his lower lip, but the other man's mouth was so warm after so long in this cold room.

_Focus, Lockhart._ He slid his left hand to Perry's uninjured shoulder and, ignoring all the pain and the protests of damaged tissue, Harry levered himself up until his head was higher than Perry's. _Make it good. Keep that bastard's eyes where I want them._ Harry opened his mouth and pushed the tip of his tongue against Perry's lips. Perry opened his mouth and lapped the underside of Harry's tongue.

_Fuck_. Harry was getting light-headed. Still, he stealthily moved his right hand down inside the waistband of Perry's trousers and then into his underwear. Harry could almost feel Jake's gaze on the two of them. He changed the angle of his mouth and moaned softly. _Don't look at my right hand._

The hand in question was still fumbling around Perry's crotch, questing for the Derringer. Despite the direness of the situation, Harry could feel Perry half-smiling into their kiss. _If we live through this, I am going to..._ There it was!

"OK! That's _enough_!" Jake's jealous voice rang out just as Harry got his hand around the small gun. "I said _stop_!" Jake strode over and grabbed Harry's shoulder, pulling him away from Perry, his head close to Harry's.

Harry swiftly raised the Derringer and pulled the trigger as soon as the muzzle was against Jake's chin. He immediately followed it with a second shot.

Once again, Harry felt warm fluid on his cheek, but he doubted that it was white this time. He felt Jake stagger back and he turned himself to face the hateful man.

Jake was collapsed on the floor, twitching.

_Die_. Harry fired again at the prone form. _You god damned_... Again. _Fucking psychotic_... And again. _Cobra Queen_. Harry fired the last shot and then continued pulling the trigger, the gun clicking harmlessly.

"Harry," Perry called him softly. "It's over. He's dead."

"He's dead?" Harry croaked the question.

"Yes."

"Good." Harry dropped the Derringer and collapsed against Perry, all strength and adrenalin gone. "I hated that fucking son of a bitch," he whispered against Perry's chest.

"So did I. But you got him, Chief."

"_Fuck_, 'm so tired." He could feel Perry's warmth on his cheek and the larger man's strong heartbeat throbbed in his ear. "Perry?"

"Yes?"

"Tell me it's alright."

"What is?"

"Just... please..."

"Fine." Perry bent his head down. "It's alright, Chief."

With a sigh of contentment, Harry let consciousness slip away.

~to be continued~


	16. Chapter 16

Morales stopped his brother's car on Orange Avenue, across the street from the modest home of Diana Lewis. He looked it over, but could see no signs of anything out of the ordinary. There was no car in the drive, but there could be one in the garage. There were no lights on, but it was the middle of the night.

"What's the plan, Lieutenant?" Johnson asked from the passenger seat, apparently recovered from his earlier fit of laughter over the pink Bug.

"We're going to take a look around." Morales answered, throwing significantly more optimism into his voice than he actually felt.

"That's a plan? Sir, we don't have a warrant."

"No. But I believe that multiple lives are currently in danger at this very moment." There was no telling what Riker was doing as they sat there in the car. "I'll take full responsibility for this."

"Good enough for me, sir. Where do we start?"

"Windows. Let's see if we can get a peek inside before we move in." Morales doubted Riker would be that sloppy, but their actions should at least hint of police protocol. "You circle right, I'll circle left."

"Right." Johnson checked his sidearm, then got out of the car. Morales took a deep breath and then did the same. The two cops crossed the street and moved quietly to the house. Morales gestured for Johnson to start with the barred front windows while he began going around the garage.

_Keep it cool._ Morales was desperately impatient. Every muscle was tense and every feeling was screaming for him to run in, guns blazing, before it was too late.

But the calm voice of experience reminded him of how many lives he risked if he did that. So he edged along the garage wall until he got to the side door.

_A blackened window? He may as well have put up a neon sign._ Morales felt reasonably sure that this was the place, but still... Garage walls were thin -- not the best place to keep a captive.

A living one, anyway.

_I should wait for Johnson_, Morales thought as he turned the knob. It moved easily and silently in his hand. Well, just a peek -- to assess the situation. He pulled the door open inch by inch, but could see only darkness beyond. He opened the door completely and looked inside. _OK, another door._ He really ought to wait for the other officer...

Morales switched off the safety on his gun and made sure it was ready to come swiftly out of its holster. Then, he reached for the inner door and pushed it gradually open, peering beyond as he did.

"Fucking hell!" The first thing to greet his eyes was Jake Riker, dead.

"Morales, you're late. Get your ass in here and do something useful." The voice was weak, but undeniably that of Perry van Shrike."

"Van Shrike!" He kicked the door the rest of the way open. "I'm 'late?' You were supposed to keep me in the fucking loop! You're lucky I'm here... at all..." Morales' tirade tapered off as he took in the scene before him. Riker lay in a pool of blood a couple of feet from where the private detective sat on the floor. _Must be cuffed_, he decided, noticing that Perry's arms were behind him. Slumped over Perry's lap and front was a smaller, darker, blood-spattered man clad only in tattered underwear. Under less serious circumstances, Morales would have made a salacious comment. "Is he...?"

"Yes, he's alive." Perry looked down at the unconscious man's face. The look on the P.I.'s face was so soft and warm that Morales felt his breath hitch a bit.

_This must be Harry_. "Are you hurt?"

"Just a little gunshot. Now, are you going to call an ambulance and uncuff me, or are you going to ask more stupid questions?"

"Holy crap!" It was Johnson. Morales turned to face where the junior officer stood in the open doorway. "Guess I won't need _this_." Johnson holstered the gun he was holding ready.

"Johnson! Call for an ambulance. Then check the house. We need to account for Diana Lewis."

"Yes, sir."

Trusting the other cop to carry out his orders, Morales moved toward the other living occupants of the room. He pulled out his cuff keys and crouched beside Perry. Careful of the shoulder he could now see bleeding, Morales uncuffed the man.

Though, by his grimace, the action clearly caused Perry pain, the freed man immediately moved his arms around his battered assistant. One went around Harry's waist. The other went up across the smaller man's back with the hand softly resting on the dark-haired head. Perry curved his neck down and pressed his face against the crown of Harry's head. He took in a deep, sharp breath and released it in a long, shuddering sign. Finally, he placed a light kiss where his face rested.

"Can you take him for a moment?" Perry asked Morales softly, turning back to the policeman.

"No problem." Morales gently took the unconscious man and cradled him in his arms while Perry got unsteadily to his feet. _Fuck. A quick death was too good for Riker_. Harry Lockhart was covered in wounds.

Swallowing bile, Morales turned his gaze back to follow Perry. The P.I. walked to the opposite side of the room and picked up a gun -- probably his own, considering it was a Vector. He then returned, staggered past Morales and Harry, and stopped beside Riker's corpse.

He looked down at the dead man, no readable expression on his profile, but an aura of rage and hate flaring around him and burning out from the eye Morales could see. Without a word, Perry raised his gun and fired shot after shot into Jake Riker's body. Looking back down at Lockhart and thinking of William Davis and Riker's first victim four years ago, Morales could almost understand.

When his rage (or his ammunition) was spent, Perry moved back to the living. As he half-sat, half-collapsed on the floor again, the sound of a siren, gradually getting louder, entered the room.

"They're nearly here, Lieutenant," Johnson informed them, following the sound into the room. "Bad news on Diana Lewis, though. Looks like Riker killed her a few days ago..." From the expression on Johnson's face, it had not been pleasant. The younger officer looked from Riker's corpse to the abused form of Harry Lockhart and back. "Makes me want to believe in Hell, sir."

Morales was a recovering Catholic, but Heaven and Hell were two beliefs he retained. "If there's any cosmic justice, he's already getting red hot pokers up his spiritual ass."

The other occupants of the room had no time to reply to this as the ambulance had arrived and the EMTs began moving into the room. Johnson moved aside for them and Morales relinquished the still-unconscious Lockhart to their professional hands. One of the EMTs tried to attend to Perry, but the P.I. just shook him off.

"I've had worse. I don't need anything right now." Perry moved obstinately to Harry's side. "I'm riding with him." The argument continued, but Perry put what Morales liked to call his "god damn! fucking scary face" and overran all protests. He walked beside the Lockhart's stretcher, holding the man's hand as they all went outside to the ambulance.

Morales saw them off and then turned to his junior officer. "Right. Jonhnson, we've got a lot of fucking tedious work to do."

The younger cop sighed. "I wish Krispy Kreme delivered…"

* * *

Three hours of boring, headache-inducing work; two hours spent dealing with whiny senior officers; five hours of blessed insensibility; and one hour of paperwork later saw Morales at Long Beach Memorial Hospital. He was there ostensibly to take Perry's statement.

_Fuck that_. Morales just wanted to see how the P.I. and his assistant were doing. He walked down the sterile white hall to the room the nurse had directed him to. Perry was apparently already recovered enough to be allowed visitors. Lockhart, who had suffered from dehydration in addition to his wounds, was still in intensive care, though his condition was stable. He would be moved out of the IC unit tonight and might even be allowed a few visitors tomorrow. Preparing to impart this promising news, Morales opened the door to Perry's hospital room.

Only to find a gorgeous blond woman smothering the private detective with a pillow.

"Police, freeze!" Morales shouted instinctively.

"Morales, wait!" Perry, incongruously smiling, stopped Morales' move toward the woman. "This is Harmony Faith Lane." Well, that explained the violence. "Harmony, this is Lieutenant Tony Morales of the Long Beach Police Department."

The woman threw the pillow at Perry then turned to Morales and shook his hand with a smile. "Thank you for all your help," she said in her sexy voice. "And thank you for calling." He had remembered sometime in the intervening hours to inform Harmony of the outcome.

"It… it was nothing!" Morales stammered out, blushing. _Damn, Harry Lockhart is one fucking lucky guy… _Morales thought, _apart from getting kidnapped and tortured._ He turned back to Perry and ignored the other man's amusement. "I've got good news Perry."

"If it's about Harry, I already know. He's going to be moved in _here_." Perry's satisfaction in this statement led Morales to believe that the P.I. and his charm were involved in the arrangements.

"Of course you know. I meant about the case." Morales moved closer to Perry's bedside. "You'll be pleased to hear that no case will be pursued against you or Harry Lockhart. Oh, and you can have _this_ back." He handed the supine man a small gun in a zip baggie.

"You _do_ know where he keeps that, don't you?" Harmony asked him, her mouth crooked at one corner.

"Why do you think it's still in the evidence bag?" He was rewarded by the blonde's smoky chuckle and he felt his policeman face slip away. Before he could go completely goofy, Morales turned back to Perry. "Anyway, even though there's no real case, I do have to take your statement as a formality."

The other man grimaced, but he promptly began telling the story of what happened in Diana Lewis's garage. Perry paused many times to choose his words – very unlike his usual confident way of speaking. By his sidelong glances at Harmony, Morales figured the man was trying to shield the woman from unpleasant details. This puzzled him. Harmony Faith Lane seemed strong enough to handle the truth. What was more, the prevarications attached to how Harry distracted Jake while he got the gun just seemed… strange. _What is Perry hiding?_

Still, as the descriptions were sufficient and clearly contained no outright lies or inconsistencies, Morales went with it. Perry's obvious exhaustion at the end of the telling encouraged the decision.

"Well, Perry. I'll leave you to your rest now."

"Tony," he was stopped by the serious tone and a grip on his arm. "Thank you. For everything."

"Just doing my job…" For at least the third time since arriving at the hospital, Morales felt embarrassed. He moved Perry's hand off his arm and under the white hospital blanket. "Now get some sleep."

"Way ahead of you." Perry was already pressing the nurse call button.

"Lieutenant Morales, would you care to join me in the cafeteria?" Harmony turned to Morales with an invitation enticing only in the offered company. "I hear they have Krispy Kreme donuts down there."

"Miss Lane, I would be delighted."

Perry's lightly sarcastic comment about walking stereotypes followed Morales and Harmony out the hospital room door.

~to be continued~

To my few, but dedicated readers: The next chapter (more of an epilogue, really) will be the last. Thanks for coming this far with me and please stay tuned for the final steps of our journey.


	17. Chapter 17

**Author's note:** Well, here's the epilogue. Big thanks to everyone who's read all the way to the end here. I hope you've enjoyed this as much as I've enjoyed writing it.

* * *

Perry stared up at his bedroom ceiling, which was illuminated by the moonlight that streamed in silver through his open curtains. Though he was tired, his mind refused to go to sleep and sleep, fickle escape that it was, refused to come to him.

_Is Harry all right, alone there in his room?_ Perry was worried about his housemate. This was their first night back after being released from the hospital. Without the strong drugs from the hospital assisting his slumber, would nightmares of Jake Riker haunt Harry?

The tortured man had not yet spoken about any of his ordeal. Perry had seen the wounds, but those were unlikely all that Harry had suffered at that psychopath's hands. _Is he going to need counseling after all this?_

Perry closed his eyes and an image of Harry on a shrink's black couch rose up behind his eyelids. The image ought to have been amusing, but, remembering the defeated look on Harry's face when Riker had dropped him to the floor, it became deadly serious -- and a serious possibility. _I never thought he'd have to use the psych option on the insurance plan I put together for him..._

Perry sighed, his eyes still closed, and ran over the last couple of days in the hospital (Perry had been officially discharged, but had stuck around until the other man was also released). Harry had talked to Perry and Harmony and had even flirted jokingly with the older woman who was his daytime nurse. And yet, he had been quiet -- for Harry Lockhart. There had been times when it was just the two of them in the room when Harry would withdraw completely, not really looking at anyone or anything, his thoughts, if he had had any, a mystery.

Of course, it may have been the drugs -- Harry had been given an enviable cocktail of oblivion consisting of various pain relievers, anti-inflammatories, and soporifics. _I could do with one or more of those right now..._

Loosing a small groan, Perry rolled onto his side, silk sheets rubbing sensuously against his skin. He tried to focus on that sensation -- revel in it -- but concentrating on the physical only highlighted the dull ache that persisted in his shoulder. _Fine, I'll just need another distraction..._

The word distraction, however, was now attached to another insomnia-inducing set of issues.

_"I love you, Perry," Harry said to him, his voice, though a whisper, the strongest it had been since Perry had found him. His hand on Perry's cheek was a warm contrast to the cold metal of the handcuffs that pressed against the P.I.'s chin._

_Meeting Harry's earnest gaze, Perry responded without thought, "I love you, too."_

_I meant it._ The same feeling of stunned wonder Perry had felt after he had said the words returned to him now. He did not bother with the when, where, why, and how the fuck...

_What the fuck am I going to do about this?_ He had no idea if Harry had meant those words. They were, after all, supposed to have been said as an act.

_Harry can't act that well,_ the gayest part of his mind -- the portion that clung to ideas like "romance" and "hope" -- insisted.

_But he's straight. Even if he meant the words, it would be the love of a friend or brother,_ the logical part that was most of Perry's brain countered.

And then, there was Harmony. There was no doubt that Harry loved and lusted for her. Harmony's return of affection was no less certain. And Perry cared for and respected the feisty actress.

_Only Hollywood could have such a fucked up love triangle._

Damn, damn, damn. None of this was conducive to sleep. He needed to stop thinking.

He rolled onto his back once more and cast his mind back to a time -- more years ago now than he generally liked to think about -- when he had gone through a yoga and meditation phase. There had been a few techniques for clearing the mind and calming down that had actually been effective. He started the breathing pattern and concentrated on that.

At some point during the timed breaths and visualizations, Perry's exhaustion finally defeated his preoccupation and he drifted into slumber.

_Perry was in the small soundproof room in Diana Lewis's garage, his shoulder leaking blood and a chill damp soaking into his trousers. Jake Riker stood gloating before him with Harry sobbing pain and fear into the concrete at his feet. Riker knelt down beside Harry and raised a fist, a gold ring glinting on the middle finger. He brought the fist down swiftly, viciously on the prone man's cheek. Harry whimpered pitifully._

"_You god damned son of a bitch!" Perry cried, struggling against his restraints. The imprint of Riker's initials marred Harry's already wounded cheek. "Leave him alone!"_

"_I'm afraid I can't do that. You chose _him_, so he has to suffer," the hated voice hissed malevolently. Riker pulled a pine two by four from somewhere and lifted in preparation to strike Harry's head. "This is your fault, Perry van Shrike." The hefty piece of lumber came down on Harry's head again and again, and the struck man screamed in agony again and again._

"_Stop! You fucking sadistic psychopathic coward! Stop!"_

"_It will all be over soon," the fiend promised, striking his final blow with such ferocity that the wood broke in two. Harry, somehow still clinging to life and consciousness, writhed on the floor. He was unable to scream or to cry – only emit horrible tiny squeaks like those of a mouse dying in a trap. Riker took out a bottle of lighter fluid and began draining its contents over Harry._

"_No! God damn you to Hell, you viper! This is between you and me! Don't do it!"_

"_Say goodbye, Perry." Riker lit a match and held it out with a flourish, his satisfied smile the most disgusting thing Perry had seen in his life._

"_No! Stop! I'll do anything – just stop!"_

"Perry!"

_Harry somehow managed to call out to his boss for help, but Perry could do nothing as Riker dropped the match. In an instant, Harry was engulfed in flames._

"_Oh, God, no! Harry!"_

"Perry!!"

_Perry felt his shoulders shake, moved by grief and helpless fury. "Harry!"_

"Perry! Wake the fuck up! I'm right here."

With a gasp, Perry jerked upright in bed. Pain seared his shoulder but he could not care about that at the moment. He gripped the shoulders of the man who sat beside him on the bed and looked hard at him. The wide haunted eyes were only recently familiar to him, but the face and the expressive mouth was undeniably Harry Lockhart.

"Harry… Thank God," Perry breathed, releasing his grip and sliding his arms around the other man, drawing him close. "Harry…" He moved a hand to the nape of Harry's neck, turning the man's head up, and then he brought their lips together.

_He's alive, _the warmth of Harry's lips against Perry's reassured the detective. _He's here with me._ Perry drew Harry's body more tightly against his own. _God, I love him so much._ He began to shift Harry into a better position to deepen the kiss.

But a half-gasp, half-moan of pain from the other man finally brought Perry into complete awareness. "Oh, shit, Harry. I'm sorry." He released the man, turned his face away, and drew back.

Or tried to.

Harry gripped Perry's shoulders just as firmly as the larger man had gripped his moments ago, though somehow avoiding the bullet wound. Perry returned his gaze to Harry. The same indefinable expression that had filled Harry's eyes in that cold concrete cell pooled in them now.

"I'm sorry Harry," Perry repeated softly. "I was having a nightmare."

"Really? I thought you were just reliving the time I started rearranging your record collection." The sarcasm was weak, but the small grin quirking the corner of Harry's mouth was genuine.

"Why…" Still held in Harry's gaze, Perry struggled for words. "Weren't you sleeping?"

The smile slipped away and a hint of fear ghosted into Harry's eyes. "Didn't dare." A slight shudder rattled Perry's shoulders from Harry's hands.

Perry moved his hands to Harry's face, lightly cupping the trembling man's cheeks. His thumbs brushed over the worried crinkles at the corners of Harry's eyes and mouth. Harry leaned into one of the hands and his grip loosened as some of the tension drained out of him. Instinctively, Perry moved in to kiss Harry again, but he stopped himself, mere inches away.

"It's OK, Perry." It was the same, certain whisper as when Harry had said "I love you." When Perry still hesitated, Harry closed the distance, bringing their lips together once more.

_I'm still dreaming…_ But when Harry opened his mouth against Perry's, the P.I. lost the will to care about reality. He embraced Harry as tightly as he had wanted to in that garage and he slid his tongue slowly into the other man's mouth. He closed his eyes and savored the moist warmth as he moved his tongue languorously against Harry's. He tasted hints of cinnamon gum and even the tobacco that the other man had been unable to smoke for days. _So undeniably Harry…_

Perry opened his eyes and drew back the barest inch. He moved his lips to brush the expressive corners of Harry's mouth, then the tip of his chin before Harry gripped Perry's face and pulled his mouth back up to resume the kiss. This time, it was Harry's tongue in Perry's mouth, moving, it seemed, with equal parts passion and desperation. Perry moved his own tongue up to caress the underside of Harry's, calming the wildness.

_Harry._ Perry's eyes fluttered closed again and he slid his hands from Harry's back. His right hand glided down Harry's left arm until it came to the hand. He gripped it lightly and stroked the severed ring finger. His left hand slid down around Harry's right flank, which quivered against his touch. He moved the hand down and then up under the thin top Harry wore to bed. Perry's thumb quested until it found the small bump of Harry's navel. He circled it once, then brushed the pad of his thumb down over it before caressing it more firmly. _Harry._

"_Perry,_" the smaller man breathed into their kiss. His voice contained a gasp and a moan and something else that made Perry's heart beat faster in his chest.

Slowly, both men drew back from the kiss, opening their eyes. There was a tiny smile curving Harry's lips and his half-open eyes were free from shadows for the first time since the man had awakened in the hospital.

"Harry," Perry began, but again an unusual loss for words plagued him.

Harry drew back a little further, sitting up straight. His expression was serious as he looked Perry straight in the eyes. "Perry," the tone was equally earnest, "I have to ask you…" He gently bit his lower lip, uncertainty gently wrinkling his brow. "Did you mean what you said – back in that… room?"

Perry knew what he meant, but he was not ready to answer. "Did you?"

"My question. I get to go first."

A soft chuckle escaped Perry. "OK, Chief, you win." He took a deep breath and shifted his right hand, sliding his fingers between Harry's. "Yes."

"Yes?"

"Yes," he repeated, lifting Harry's hand to his lips and kissing it softly.

"Good," Harry replied, slumping forward suddenly against Perry. Unprepared for the weight, Perry fell back against the pillows, Harry laying half on top of him. The smaller man then snuggled against Perry, pillowing his head on Perry's chest.

"Good?"

"Good," Harry repeated sleepily.

Perry moved his own arms around the man currently using him as a body pillow. "Harry, you haven't answered _my_ question, yet."

"Tell you in the morning."

"No. You'll tell me _now_."

"Good night, Perry."

"Fuck good night!" He said it softly, though. "I want my answer." There was no sound from the other man. "Harry." Still nothing. "Harry!"

A soft, contented snore was the only reply Perry got.

With an exasperated, affectionate sigh, Perry closed his eyes.

"Good night, idiot."

~**the end, for now**~

Thanks again, everybody!


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